Twisted Hearts: Triangular
by DBAinsw
Summary: RobStarRae: A romantic commedy melodrama of epic proportions, with a boat of angst to boot.  Who gets Robin when he loves them both and dosn't want to hurt either?  By the end, you won't care... in a good way.
1. Ice Cream Confessionals

Teen Titans the animation is owned by Cartoon Network under the auspices of Turner Broadcasting Corporation and also by those crazy, madcap gents at Warner Bros' Animation and that cool cat Glen Murakami. The characters are owned in joint by these fine gentlemen and DC comics, specifically the wonderful Marv Wolfman and his impressive compatriot writers and illustrators. This story is mine, may it do them justice.

* * *

Hello and greetings to all readers, whether you be new to my stories, or experienced in the Twisted Hearts series. Fed up with the eternal question of who should get Robin, I decided to take a slightly different approach and make answering that god-forsaken query the entire focus of a story. I had intended for it to be a one-shot, but then I got to writing it, and damn if the plot didn't grow legs I didn't know it could have! In any case, I'll just say now that I probably should rate this higher than T, mostly due to strong language, abundant but non-graphic sexual content, descriptions of the effect of illegal (and imaginary) drugs, and themes like underage drinking and sexual assault. Only my firm belief that you'd hear worse than any of this in the average high-school hallway, and my utter disdain for censorship, keep the rating down.

Twisted Hearts: Triangular

For those familiar with my writing style, I have to apologize, because below is not quite what you might expect. Going in a different direction for once, I decided to begin with an experiment in the power of dialogue as the driving factor in the story, and so long, descriptive paragraphs from my other works are absent (for this chapter only, I'll return to my old style in future chapters as plot circumstance dictates). Instead, I hope you enjoy the banter between Robin and his friend, a character I chose as the only conceivable foil to the love-sick hero, and the only character in Teen Titans who could be made into a total pig without having to go OOC. Also, most of the opinions expressed here are the characters', not the author's. I don't need any hate mail.

Chapter 1: Ice Cream Confessionals

"Have you ever felt like you were living in a nightmare?" Robin asked, the sound mildly muffled by the fact that his face was pressed into his arms where he had them crossed and propped on the bar in front of him.

"I guess… how do you mean?" asked his companion, who sat immediately next to him at the bar, leaning back against it and keeping his eyes on the room.

"I mean, like the world is caught in some kind of surreal warp," and he didn't look up as he talked, a shroud of defeat weighing down on his crumpled shoulders, "like every moment is impossible to deny and impossible to believe at the same time," his voice was colored by the force of his emotional exhaustion, doing nothing to improve his friend's ability to understand, "like you keep expecting to wake up and end the insanity."

"…Damn… you are _so_ depressing," Robin's compatriot accused him rather than answering that unbelievably sad expression, his eyes surveying the large, quiet diner systematically as he spoke his aside to the miserable heap next to him. "You have to be the _only_ guy I know who can manage to get upset about having _too_ _much_ action." From the tone it was clear the young red-haired man, so similar in build and appearance to the utterly dejected Boy Wonder, was not talking about crime fighting when he said 'action.'

"You just don't get it Speedy," Robin accused, never looking up, "This isn't about running around and nailing anything with a pulse. If it was only a question of 'action' then hell, I'd have thrown caution to the wind and kicked back to enjoy the ride from square one. But man, that's not… I just _can't_ be that way, not normally, and _never_ with these girls."

"I _swear_," and Speedy smacked a hand down on the bar to emphasize it, "I _swear_ that you're over-thinking this Robin. You gotta stop wracking your brain over the issue and just _chill_. I've found that if you go with the flow, things will just work themselves out on their own. I _guarantee_—"

Robin lifted a hand out from under his head and waved the other man to silence, clearly lacking any interest in hearing more of Speedy's life philosophy. Just because there was no one else he could talk to about this right now, didn't mean he had to sit there and listen to the only advice he was liable to get. Especially when it so thoroughly contradicted everything he was trying to do in this crazy, messed up situation.

"Geez—_fine_, if you want to give yourself an ulcer avoiding the problem, if you want to permanently keep those two babes from grinding you into the dirt with all that terrible affection you can't seem to handle," the force of Speedy's mocking was not improving Robin's mood, "then hey, just go ahead and keep doing what you're doing. You're a hell of a guy, I'm sure you could successfully run from those two for the rest of your life. I just thought you respected them a little more than tha—"

Speedy's needling was cut short when Robin's head flashed up and he slammed both hands onto the bar, spinning and fixing the other guy with a stare that would have singed the tarnish off of brass.

"Shut the hell up, okay? Just SHUT UP!" Robin screamed at Speedy, shattering the diner's tranquil atmosphere quite completely. He glowered at the other guy in silence as he waited a long moment for everyone's attention to return to their own business, the red-haired bowman's face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace the entire time.

"Okay, okay, I know—" Speedy tried to apologize, but Robin's heated whisper overran his words.

"You _don't_ know Speedy, you _really_ _don't_—okay?" and Robin returned to an unhappy slouch before detailing his misery further. "I _do_ respect them, I _really_ and _truly_ **_do_**, down to the _bottom_ of my heart. I swear to god and country that I would lay down my life for either of them at a moments notice, and I have complete and utter faith that either of them would do the same for me. In a way, it's that trust and friendship that's making all this so damn _difficult_."

"I still think it's all only as hard as you're making it for yourself," Speedy cut in rather snidely, and he earned another withering stare for Robin for his comment, squelching him into silence before the intensely brooding crime fighter went on again.

"Why the _hell_ did all this have to happen?" Robin asked the universe in a rather pleading tone, "Things were perfect before—and I don't mean _good_, I mean _perfect_. We'd beaten the ass of everyone to take us on, we'd saved the city dozens of times, we had a perfect set up to keep on defeating evil and protecting the innocent for a good long time. And then this came along… and I just need to ask… _WHY_?" His question drew a few more stares from around the diner, but those quickly dissipated as people began to get a sense of the type of diner patron he was going to be tonight.

"I'll _tell_ ya why," Speedy cut in, utterly fed up with Robin's melodramatic display. "It's your own damn fault! No matter how much cold professionalism or obsessive workaholic insanity you cover it up with, you can't deny that you are a grade-A _chick magnet_. I'm telling you, it's the mask man, its worked for me more times than I could count, and it does the _same_ _thing_ for you."

"Speedy…" Robin made a half hearted attempt to cut him off, trying to catch him before he could go any further down what he knew to be completely the wrong road, but the other guy was on a roll.

"When you're out doing the hero thing, being brave, strong, noble—all the stuff that comes with the territory… well, you have to expect to put off an undeniable magnetism. Women totally dig all the mystery, the dynamic personality, and hell—being chiseled better than the average soap opera star doesn't hurt either. You and me, we have to _expect_ things like this, and the biggest surprise to me here is that you _didn't_ see it all coming _sooner_." Speedy had fixed a spectacular grin on his face as he explained it all in calm, simple terms that Robin had to admit made pretty good sense from his perspective. It was just too bad that had nothing to do with what was getting him down. "For now," Speedy continued, "I'm still trying to understand why you aren't shouting joy to the rooftops over all this."

"Okay… I guess I can see part of what you're saying, but hear me out before you go patting me on the back and envying my lot, because there's one key fact that you're not getting." Robin geared up for something truly depressing, and Speedy rolled his eyes, amazed by his friend's capacity for looking on the grim side.

"I suppose I always felt a little something between me and Starfire," Robin admitted right away, "I mean, the situations we've been in since I first helped her get acquainted to the planet have been pretty suggestive… in retrospect… but I always kind of believed that the whole species thing would keep that from going further than it has. I got some weird signals from her that day we were shipwrecked on the alien planet, but I was kind of hoping it would die down a little once I made it clear how committed I was to always being there for her."

"Whoa there, you never told me about that!" Speedy snapped out accusatorily, as though furious that the other guy would hold out on him where hot and heavy action was concerned. "Come on, out with it!"

Robin sighed heavily, then broke with his tirade to tell the other guy about the misadventures of him and his girlfriend/not-girlfriend on the deserted alien planet. Speedy seemed to get a huge kick out of it, and went off on a rant at his first opportunity.

"So… wait now," he began, feigning extreme confusion, "are you trying to tell me that you and that sweet red-head were stranded, alone, on a dangerous alien world, _alone_, in constant peril for your lives, **_alone_**, and you didn't get _any_ action!"

"Would you stuff it already? Starfire isn't like that!" Robin was obviously put off by Speedy's asinine ranting, staring into the shiny hardwood of the bar as he recalled the dangerously intense emotions that had been running around that night on the alien world. It wasn't as if he wasn't attracted to the woman, absolutely the opposite, but it just _wouldn't_ work out, none of it could work out, _especially_ not after last night.

"I'm telling you man, you have to have set some kind of _record_ for passing on the freely offered attention of incredibly hot women!" Speedy jibed, elbowing him the shoulder suggestively in a way that _really_ annoyed Robin. "I mean, I can understand wanting to keep it professional with hotties you work and live with, but when they're practically _begging_ for it—"

"Drop it, _okay_?" Robin didn't ask so much as he commanded, fed up with Speedy's overly familiar taunting, "I'm not done explaining why all of this is such an unmitigated disaster."

"Oh, right, this I gotta hear," Speedy sighed out in exasperation. "Come on and just _try_ to convince me to pity rather than envy your lucky ass!"

"Oh, you'll see soon enough," the Boy Wonder assured the marksman. "Anyway, I at least had some warning with Starfire. Hell…" and he hesitated, lost for a moment in wistful thoughts, "I might have even been able to deal with that. It _genuinely_ could have worked out between us… if the whole situation hadn't gotten the shaft via sneak attack. Honestly, the whole thing with Raven, I mean _my god_! How was I supposed to see _that_ coming?"

"You're _kidding_, right?" Speedy wasn't amused now, giving the other guy an annoyed look of his own.

"What do you mean?" Robin obviously didn't know how he'd upset the man.

"What I _mean_ is," and Speedy looked about ready to smack the dark haired man, "you'd have to be a myopic twit to not notice the way that woman looks at you! Jesus Christ Robin, what do you need, a friggen blinking neon sign on her forehead saying 'I'm incredibly attracted to you?'"

"I—I have _no idea_ what you're—" Robin stammered indignantly, only to be cut off.

"Now _you_ need to stuff it my friend, 'cause you're _full_ _of it_," Speedy overran Robin's pathetic denials effortlessly, showing his analytical and intelligent side rather than his goofy party-boy side for once. "I _barely_ know Raven, but I know her _type_ well, and you two might as well have been custom printed for one another! Dark, mysterious guy with more inner strength and effusive nobility than you can shake a birdarang at, and a dark, mysterious woman with a depth of emotional issues matched only by the volumes of personal insecurity she keeps all bottled away. I mean, where did you _think_ she was going to go for a powerful, supportive figure in her life?"

Robin considered Speedy's stark evaluation for a few seconds, eyes wide at the change that had overtaken his friend all of a sudden. It was easy to forget how much he and Speedy were alike; it was easy to forget just how smart the other guy was, especially when he was being his generally priggish, chauvinistic, womanizing self. The truth was that the other guy had about a billion times more experience with women and relationships than Robin himself had managed to accumulate, thus this meeting during his time of need.

"I guess… I guess I figured there was something going on between her and Beast Boy," Robin made a hesitant, grasping excuse, hating to seem ignorant in front of his friend. "There was always chemistry _there_ if you ask me." Robin didn't sound too sure of himself, and after hearing out his proposal, Speedy just shook his head sadly.

"B.B.? That twip?" Speedy insulted the other guy freely, secure in the knowledge that since he was only telling the truth, it wasn't wrong to do. "Honest to _god_ Robin, I don't know how you can live in denial like that and pretend to be happy. As attractive as it _sounds_ for a goofy, insecure clown like Greenboy Furrybutt to get together with a deep, intensely needy and vulnerable spire of feminine grace and beauty like Raven, that kinda thing only happens in the movies. In real life, B.B. obviously _wants_ to be supportive of the freight train load of serious issues Raven has to face, but is that really what he wants to do _all the time_—_forever_?

"And even if he _did_, how would he manage it? Boyish charm and a good heart only go so far in that kind of relationship… I mean, Raven's type is always looking for something deeper, a person she can talk to and lighten her 'burdened soul' upon. Honestly, even a thimbleful of what she'd need her partner to take on would pop old B.B. like one of his own zits."

"Dang man, that's pretty harsh…" Robin said, even as he internally agreed with Speedy's assessment. Beast Boy meant well, and he'd done more than a little to help Raven come out of her shell, but he just didn't seem the type to stay up late engaging in long, serious discussions about complex issues; or for that matter, could he see Raven playing video games and freaking out over imaginative but poorly-written movies. As cute as it was to think of those two hitting it off, it wasn't exactly the kind of relationship to stand the test of time.

"I don't want to sound _too_ mean here," Speedy went on, not actually sounding as if he cared that much, "but there's one more thing. I've seen the way those two act together most of the time, and I'll let you in on a little dating secret that I picked up a ways back. When a guy does something intentionally to bug a girl—or hell, the other way around works too—that means the guy, or girl, digs the person. _Duh_, right? That much is obvious to any nut with eyes. What you have here is different, and I'll tell you why." If he was waiting for Robin to tense with interest during all that beating around the bush, then he wasn't going to be satisfied anytime soon, the dour hero virtually carved from stone as he sat at the bar.

"Right…" Speedy gave up and went on, "When something a person does for shits and giggles makes the other person want to pull his or her hair out, that's called _inherent_ _incompatibility_, and you'd be friggen amazed at how many relationships go south when people get together without realizing they've got one of those. Not to say that things like that can't be overcome, but… well… Beast Boy is into cheep antics and self-absorbed ranting, while Raven would sooner eat one of the green man's socks than let him get away with that kind of egomaniacal bull. Meanwhile, Raven is into solitary, quiet pastimes that—I'm sorry, but you _must_ have noticed yourself." Speedy obviously felt he didn't need to carry that discussion any farther.

"Yeah, yeah," Robin acceded without argument, "most of what she does is _way_ far beyond the land of weird—just past 'fantastically abnormal' on the supernatural side of the road." He paused for a moment to think of some of the bone-chilling things he'd been through since he met her, then shook his head and appended, "It _really_ doesn't bother me."

"But it _bugs_ the _hell_ out of B.B., and that's the final nail in _that_ romance's coffin. SOOO…" and Speedy fixed a new, incredibly obnoxiously suggestive grin on his buddy, "you were bemoaning your lot in life… please continue."

Robin didn't answer at first, staving off any further pestering from Speedy by burying his face in his drink. As he pulled down the second half of his fifth chocolate shake, he seemed to sink into his chair at the same rate that the fluid level in his cup dropped, so that by the time he was slurping loud bubbles through the long bendy straw, he was practically slumped over. Rather apathetically, his lips released the straw and it slinged back up to its full and upright position, his head remaining planted in the bar.

"Come on Robin, it can't _possibly_ be as bad as all that," Speedy attempted to prod him into answering, and Robin turned a frumpy grimace his direction without lifting his head, a dire glare silently assuring Speedy that, _yes_, it was _very_ _much_ as bad as all that. It was the particularly pathetic, piteous, hazy look behind that glare that finally tipped Speedy off to what the central problem was. When it occurred to him at last, he went through a series of natural stages.

"Oh man…" he gasped, shock stabbing him with adrenaline and a cold sweat breaking visibly across his brow, "you gotta be _kidding_ me." Robin didn't answer, he just continued to focus that sad, sad stare Speedy's way, and the young man's feeling of shock ballooned outward into a great many other powerful emotions.

"Robin!" he snapped, outraged, "My god, what were you _thinking_!" Speedy suddenly screamed as irrational anger had its say.

"I _know_…" Robin moaned, "It… it just kind of… snuck up on me," he made the pathetic excuse, obviously not needing the other guy's yelling to feel awful about what had happened.

"Oh _hell_ no, **_Ninjas_** have _nightmares_ about sneaking up on _you_, _you're_ **_Robin_** for Christ's sake! _Damnit_ man, guys like us—that just isn't supposed to happen! We're not allowed to—to—well we're _not_!" Speedy wasn't even able to say the word, lest he soil his tongue with its horrific bite.

"I _know_!" Robin assured him hopelessly, rolling his head on the bar until he was staring at it instead of his outraged friend.

"I mean, what if there's a hostage situation—or heaven forbid, a _conflict_ of _interests_? It's okay for _them_ to feel that way—hell, it's only natural! But _you_—you can't afford to be _involved_ like that!" Speedy begged Robin to deny what he was saying, hopelessly bombarding him with the reasons for it to be a lie. The other guy didn't answer, instead merely banging his head gently against the bar with a harsh wooden sound. Speedy felt himself begin to choke, and he took a moment to get his breathing under control, grabbing his root-beer float and draining it to the dregs. He wiped the ice cream off his nose, then continued to express his disbelief.

"Say it isn't so man… tell me it's just a fling, just spring fever getting to you," he continued to beg, rather hopelessly now as he recognized the telling sag of his friend's shoulders and the odd set to his face as he pressed it against the bar.

"It's too late man…" Robin assured Speedy in a calm, resigned voice, "I'm so gone… I don't even know how to _describe_ it. And you haven't even heard the bad part yet…" Speedy shuddered, trying not to imagine what could possibly be worse than loosing one's own heart, then began starring into his empty mug and joined his friend in moping for what had left him.

"I mean, this is _epic_ Robin," Speedy muttered randomly, "this is… good lord." The ultimate undoing of the virile young male, the nemesis of the independent superhero, the terrible, soul-sucking demon that plagued all man, had come to visit his good friend at last. Except for the _very_ best, it hit them all eventually, with varying degrees of horror as the result. Speedy had never suspected that a guy like Robin could fall victim to it, never a workaholic nut like Bird Boy.

As he finished coming to terms with what he'd finally managed to realize, he organized his mind to begin the damage control process, kicking himself repeatedly even as he gave his good buddy a gentle pat on the back. He really couldn't help but feel the complete ass considering the way he'd treated his friend in a time of such dire need, and he was determined to make up for it.

"So, I guess you should start by telling me which one," Speedy commented calmly as he accepted another drink from the barkeep.

"What do you mean, 'which one'?" Robin asked dejectedly without lifting his forehead off the bar, and Speedy couldn't help but feel a flash of anger at such veiled denials of what had happened.

"Okay, we've established that you went and fell _in love—_" Speedy spat the dangerous word, "with one of your _teammates_…" and this seemed to particularly disgust him, "despite all the _great_ reasons for _not_ doing that. If you want my help riding it out, you'll just have to break down and tell me _which_ _one_ cupid's trick shot managed to nail you for."

"I _reiterate_…" and Robin was utterly serious, utterly miserable, and also the slightest bit floaty as he made his biggest point, "What do you _mean_, 'which one'?"

Speedy dropped his cup from one numb hand, the sturdy plastic container clattering against the floor in a storm of sweetened carbonated water and frozen sugary milk. As he blinked in fuzzy shock, the monumental implications of what Robin had just made explicitly clear sunk into his brain and began to set off minor explosions behind his eyes. He slowly, slowly clenched his hands, unclenched them, then pressed his face into his palms.

"Please… _Please_ tell me you didn't fall in love with _both_ of them," Speedy begged, not sure if he could handle the consequences of that being true. Even before the other guy answered, Speedy knew more or less what he'd say, and a spreading well of pity began to form in his soul for the dire circumstances his pal had landed in.

"Oh _no_, I didn't fall 'in love' with both of them," Robin started, and Speedy resigned himself to what he was about to hear, "I mean, 'in love' simply doesn't _begin_ to describe what I feel for them."

"Basically," he went on, head motionless against the bar, "I lack the words to describe the feeling I have toward each of them, to depict, even in the shallowest and most phantasmal manner the crazy sensation in my chest. I don't know how it happened, but what I always thought was just a detached, professional friendship and completely natural, brotherly affection and protective instinct just up and… _transformed_—right under my nose. Now, I look at them and—Jesus, I can't even _believe_ it."

"Starfire…" Robin said the name and paused, as though it conjured such a reaction in his mind that he could do little else, and then continued in a slow, hesitant mumble that would persist as long as he tried to fumble through an explanation of his 'feelings.' "I told you I always felt something for her… right from the moment I met her… but since last night… it's all just _blown up_. Sitting here, just thinking about her… the way she looks… the sound of her voice… the particular way her face bends when she smiles… "

"**_Stop_**!" Speedy pleaded, "I _get_ _it_."

"Right, okay," Robin wasn't really listening, "but really, that _literally_ is only the _half_ of it. That by itself, this crazy feeling of… what? Happiness? Floating? Trembling in my chest? Whatever it is, I associate it with Starfire now… since I first began to see the light last night. Anyway, it's… it's… _wonderful_—maybe the _greatest_ thing I've ever felt… not that I've been keeping track… but whatever else, it _does_ have a match. It has a twin that was born in the same moment it was… the other feeling… the one I can't help but associate with Raven."

"Oh _brother_," Speedy moaned, having never imagined the day when he'd see his buddy and rival attempt to talk about love in the sadly inadequate vocabulary of the adolescent male. He even _knew_ that he sounded like a complete fool, that he couldn't _possibly_ actually convey what he felt, but like so many other idiots in love, that wasn't stopping him from effusively spouting the drivel. His complaint was ignored by Robin, far too wrapped up in his own troubles to give Speedy's discomfort any mind.

"What is the other feeling?" Robin asked rhetorically in that slow, hesitant voice, so very burdened by the secret misery underscoring his newfound and intense emotions. "For that one I can't even _compare_ it to anything… it's only describable as 'what I feel when I think about Raven,' and '_very_ nice.' Honestly, what can I _say_ about that woman? Mystique, quiet intelligence, a bearing and poise that border on the regal, and such incredible… _legs_! Have you _seen_ her in that leotard man?" Robin asked in complete earnest, rising from his lovey-dovey tirade to mention a snippet of pure lust, something the other guy could finally relate too. It was heartening to hear that he still had at least _one_ of his priorities straight, though he didn't wait for Speedy's conspiratorially lurid smile before continuing with the emotional drivel.

"I've been thinking nonstop since I got the hell out of Dodge last night, and I… I may _know_ the root of all this… the feature they both share that most likely roped me in so hopelessly." At Robin's continuing admission of being completely beyond hope as far as his feelings went, Speedy began to wonder how on Earth he was supposed to help out, but for the time being just sat and continued to listen to him vent.

"I thought about it for a long time," Robin repeated himself, "and I realized, it's their _strength_ man, that's what I can't resist. That's what's making my heart race, my palms sweat—the whole nine yards."

"Are you sure its not that they're both in that wonderful place between eight and ten on the Babe-o-meter?" Speedy cut in, trying to break the dour, serious mood somewhat with a little sport. Robin glared at him, the cutting sadness behind his eyes pressing out to make Speedy instantly regret his comment. For him, regretting anything was exceptionally rare, and he continued to fear finding out just what could make Robin so inconceivably _intense_.

"Each of them is possessed of unbelievable strength on _so many_ levels," Robin continued, as though having Speedy hear every last word of his long-considered internal debate would somehow convince him that Robin _wasn't_ **out of his _mind_** to even _entertain_ the feelings he was having, "and yet they are both so _vulnerable_, so completely _defenseless_ in other respects. I find myself _torn_ between a crushing awe of their beauty and strength and an overwhelming need to _protect_ them from whatever might try to stab at their weaker sides."

"Ever since I gave into these feelings," and Robin's love-struck tone reached sort of a fever pitch as he neared the end of his face-down, distant-starred lecture, "I've felt _different_… **_empty_**, like suddenly some piece of me is gone and missing, like the moment I let these feelings loose, I lost a part of myself to those two… those two… _glorious_ women."

"AGG, okay just chill for a minute man," Speedy gasped out desperately as he watched various ranges of love-struck stupidity travel languidly along Robin's face. "I don't know if I've _ever_ seen such a severe case before, _hell_, yours might even be _terminal_, but if you'll just calm down and come back to reality for a few minutes, we can talk this out."

"Reality _blows_," Robin stated angrily, his mood shifting suddenly as the core of his discontent finally bubbled to the surface past all the goofy, tingling 'feelings' he was expressing, "in _reality,_ I have to leave behind the very safe, secure knowledge that I am completely, utterly, and _totally_ in absolute and _extreme_ love with two women that, as you so astutely observed, have strong feelings for me in return. In _reality_, I have to consider the mountain of really shitty extenuating circumstances that transform what should be the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me into an _endless_, _waking_ **_nightmare_**. Come on now Speedy, do you still envy me?"

"I envy your flare for the _dramatic_ Robin, a lot of women go for that, and I've never been able to fake that _particular_ tone of sincerity. As for your situation, I'd sooner hang up my bow than trade places with you… _okay_? Happy now?" and the red-haired maverick was utterly serious, trying to pry his friend out of misery and get some sensible words from him. "Now please, calm down for a minute and tell old Speedy what the root of your problem is. I've got an idea but… uh… you'd better explain it anyway."

"It's quite obvious," Robin muttered, dropping his head back to the bar and reaching a whole new level of crushing, smothering depression, "the thing that's breaking my heart… the thing that's twisting my mind… the thing that's stomping on my dream and making love really, _really_ hurt… is the _Choice_ Speedy."

"Oh _dear_ _god_…" Speedy mumbled in disbelief as he began to rub his forehead in frustration for his hopelessly love-struck friend. Questions like the ones torturing Robin only arose when one allowed women to dig their charms into your heart, rather than merely your libido, something he'd always avoided, and so he couldn't imagine being much help at this point. He resigned himself to being an ear for the Boy Wonder's misery to vent upon.

"That damn, fucking, heartbreaking _Choice_," Robin went on, not quite holding back tears but obviously in a stark emotional state as he spoke, "what in the world could possibly have caused me to deserve such a miserable _curse_? I love them _both_, I can see now that I love them more than _life_—I _actually_, _physically_ **_need_** them! They've each captured a piece of me, and now I'm not _complete_ without them around!" He finished making his rather broad and incredibly expressive lover's exaggerations, and then let his voice drop as he prepared for the 'but.'

"But… how in the hell can I _express_ that to them? I've been wracking my brain all day and all of last night, trying to figure some way to manage it. What method could possibly serve to allow _one_ man to tell _two_ women such an absolute and all-consuming fact? I couldn't possibly, in a million years, _ever_ bring myself to break even the tiniest crack into either of their hearts, and yet, what other choices do I have man! Everything is in a dire balance, a kind of murderously precarious dance wherein the moment I move to tell one of them how I feel, the other side falls apart in a way I simply _can't_ allow!"

"Okay, Robin, you have to _calm_ _down_!" Speedy demanded, not unreasonably, as the acrobat finally stopped to breathe, the effort of getting out the core of what was torturing him leaving him quite breathless, "You're being a friggen drama queen!"

"What am I going to do?" Robin muttered miserably to himself, basically ignoring Speedy's rather well-founded insult, his normally iron will and pristine self-confidence shattered before the burden that had been placed upon him. "My hands are tied… and the clock is ticking."

"Well now…" Speedy was on questionable ground, but he still felt that he should give it a shot, especially now that Robin had finished venting his emotions and might actually manage to be reasonable, "just what's so bad about sitting down and telling them how you feel? I can't claim any experience there, but I've heard it tends to work okay."

"No… _god_ no," and Robin was clearly adamant, his emotional ranting replaced by a much more calculated tone, "I've been thinking about this for the past twenty hours, and it just _can't_ work. Consider if I confront woman A with my feelings… would that not automatically drive woman B away? Could you honestly expect my affections toward one to not instantly shatter the other's heart?"

"Well, I guess I could see—" Speedy tried to comment, but Robin was back to not listening as he poured out the long line of logic he'd twisted his mind into knots trying to apply to love.

"After all, aren't women after _one_ thing? I can only claim the experience of television and books, but as far as I know, women _need_ loyalty, they need _commitment_. For some reason that I haven't been able to understand, love is something that's black and white, yes or no, all or nothing, a situation taken in absolutes that can't be compromised. In every case I've ever heard of, demonstrating affection for anyone other than 'your girl' is a signal that your love for her is somehow less than what it should be, or that it no longer exists."

"Okay—okay, I can see your point there," Speedy had a great deal of experience in the 'wanting commitment' department, the discussion of which always seemed to come right around the time he felt the need to make himself scarce. "So… why not just quietly…'neglect' to mention that your heart pines for more than just woman A, then do the same in an equally discreet manner with woman B? Eh?" A rakishly raised eyebrow said he obviously thought he had something here, but Robin shot the plot down without hesitation.

"Perhaps _you_ feel fine lying to and deceiving women," Robin knew he wouldn't hurt the other guy's feelings with such comments, "but I _care_ about them Speedy. Like I said earlier, that depth of caring is what's making this so damn _difficult_! Damn… even if I _could_ lie to them, I could _never_ keep up such a ruse, not with them both living in the same building as me. Besides… they're _best_ _friends_ Speedy, I mean **_close_**. Do you know what would happen if they found out that they'd both been dating me… for a _while_? Two possibilities my friend—they blame me and I die a painful death—or they blame each other… and _god **save** us **all**_. With women, when friendship goes sour like that, it just blows away anything men ever go through, and I'd not like to see the other side of that line of events, not a _chance_."

Robin fell to silence for a moment, he and Speedy both absorbed in deep thought. That Robin was stressing over his circumstances and Speedy was fondly remembering the brunet he'd most recently nailed demonstrated the difference in their personalities. In any case, Robin was the one to pick it up again.

"I don't know man, I _really_ don't know," the spiky-haired one sighed sadly, "Maybe I'm just screwed up, but I honestly feel this _beautiful_ emotion _equally_ for both of them, maybe I _always_ have, and it just took the insanity of last night to open my eyes!"

"Then why don't you just tell them _that_ man!" Speedy suggested in exasperation, suddenly self conscious of the number of date's he'd lost due to his compulsively wandering eye. There had been times he'd managed to interest more than one girl at once, but: A) they were drunk, B) they were only after a one night stand _anyway_, and C) that really wasn't anything like this.

"Oh, yeah, I can see that working out _spectacularly_!" Robin moaned sarcastically, his frustration at his situation heating his tone unreasonably. "I get them both together, sit them down, and explain that I have different, beautiful, equally intense feelings for each of them, then expect them to… what? _Take me at my **word**_? They'll think I'm some kind of jack-hole player like _you_! I'd be lucky to _survive_ the experience, much less do anything other than _erase_ their feelings for me!"

"Okay, hold it _right there_ lover-boy!" Speedy demanded fiercely, slamming his fist on the bar and drawing up his slight height advantage over the spiky-haired nut, his sudden outburst actually shocking Robin into silence. "First of all, I'm not a 'jack-hole player,' alright? I'm actually a highly successful 'philandering dick-head player' and I'd thank you to remember it! More importantly—actually not _more_ important, but _important_—I came out here tonight to help you, not get yelled at by some emotionally-high reject whose had his balls removed by a tag-team of pretty eyes!"

"I—I—" Robin was livid, at an utter loss for words, and for an instant it seemed he would actually snap. At the last moment, he swallowed his frustration, took a deep breath, and turned back to his drink. "You're right," he clipped out stiffly, "I'm sorry. I've been through this cycle about fifteen times now, so I should have been expecting it. First I get depressed, then I get bubble-brained and love-struck, then I remember how fucked up this all is and I just get _angry_."

"I'm _so_ **_angry_**," and as Robin made his next point, he seemed to gain a great deal more clarity, much more like his normal self, "and not just about the situation in general, but angry at _myself_! I feel like, if I could just clear my head—you know, think like I normally do without all the whacked-out emotions getting in the way—well, then I could figure out a workable solution. Its just so frustrating that every time I clear my head, I either remember what a god-forsaken situation I'm in or I let some thought of one of the ladies slip into my mind and viola!—The cycle begins again. Please man, you gotta help," and now Robin's voice became rather pathetic as he slumped down onto the bar again, his clarity ending as he plopped squarely back into his depressed phase, "This _is_ **_killing_** me."

"…Right…" Speedy said non-committaly, following it with a deep sigh as he considered his options for helping out his bud. Eventually, he got a thought, and as the thought coalesced into an idea, he grew a rather fiendish smile.

"Okay Robin, I'll tell ya what we're going to do," he started to explain, and the distinct improvement in his mood was more than enough to pique Robin's interest. "First, we're going to blow this joint. Screw ice-cream, we need to get you _wasted_ my friend. There's nothing ailing you right now that won't look better out the bottom of an empty whisky glass."

"Ah, really—I don't—" Robin tried to back away from that suggestion, but Speedy gripped him around the shoulder forcefully, obviously determined to not let him chicken out.

"It's no problem man," Speedy assured him, "I happen to know for a _fact_ there there's an underground party down on pier 24 where they don't care _who_ you are **_or_** _how_ _old_ you are as long as you're there to have fun, and you can pay the door charge. They might be a little leery of the fact that we're technically 'the man' but I know how to get around that too. Seriously, come on, right now, its time to get you shit-faced."

"Ahh _crap_," Robin's resistance snapped, too worn from his battle with new emotions to put up much of a fight, "whatever, if it'll get my mind off of this mess, then _hell_ yeah, let's go."

"_That's_ what I like to hear man—and on the way, you can tell me about this 'crazy night' you had. If it left you in this mess, it's gotta be a story worth hearing." Speedy gave Robin a huge grin as he smacked a hundred dollar bill down on the counter and leapt off his stool, careful not to land in the sticky, slippery mess no one had gotten around to cleaning off the floor. Robin, also accustomed to receiving milk money in the form of Benjamins from his wealthy legal guardian, paid the large bill and even _larger_ tip no mind, following Speedy over toward the door.

"Seriously man, last night—you have _no_ _idea_," Robin assured him as they walked out into the plaza and parking lot in front of the little diner. By the downright suggestive tone of those last two words, Speedy could imagine he didn't, and his interest exploded, his eyebrows raised as eagerness quickly wrote itself all over his expression. When Robin noticed, he threw caution and decency to the wind, saying, "I can summarize the part's you'll enjoy by mentioning the presence of mind-control drugs and alien aphrodisiacs… "

"**_WHAT_**?" Speedy nearly face-planted, tripping over his own feet at hearing this. "Holy mother of GOD Robin, why the hell didn't you _start_ with this story? Just hearing that and I'm back to envying you again!" At this, Robin stopped walking, and Speedy actually took a few extra steps past him before he stopped too and turned around. One look at the utterly serious, completely pained look the other man sported, and he was back to one of those uncommon moments of regret. "Of course… I'm only _almost_ back to envying you…" he amended, and thankfully, that was enough for Robin to pull himself back together.

"I swear Speedy, you're such a fucking _pig_, how do you _ever_ get a date?" Robin asked, completely serious as the two made their way down the road.

"I _already_ explained this dude, remember?" and Speedy was almost taunting, dangling the obvious fact of his _lack_ of lady troubles over Robin's head. "Mask? Hero? Magnetism? Any of that ring a bell? And… it doesn't hurt to know _just_ where to go to find ladies more interested in a hot body and a wild night than 'commitment.'"

"Yeah… _right_," and Robin made it clear how very little he begrudged Speedy his carefree lifestyle.

"Of course, _you know_," Speedy opened another line of conversation all of a sudden, getting one of those peculiar smiles he sometimes managed, "There is _one more_ option you could consider for resolving this whole mess."

"And what would _that_ be?" Robin asked, without any hope at all.

"Why, you could send some of that abundant action _my_ _way_, of course."

Robin didn't hesitate, he just stuck out a leg, grabbed Speedy by the arm, and launched him backward onto the ground full force, laying out the other guy like a sack of potatoes and a causing a nasty thumping noise. Before the marksman, who was taken by complete surprise, could even _think_ about going for his bow, Robin had his staff out and was holding it threateningly over Speedy's eye.

"Hmm, lets think about this for a moment," said Robin dangerously, squelching any comment the red-head might have made with the terrible threat abundant in his tone. "Why would I send a woman I _LOVE_, a woman I can't imagine, even momentarily, _incrementally_, or **_theoretically_** harming, _anywhere_ near your womanizing, philandering, faithless hide?"

"It was… just a thought?" Speedy squeaked out, fully aware that he'd crossed a line he shouldn't have messed with this time.

"Well think again dick-head, because no matter what else goes between the three of us, I'm _always_ going to protect them, **_no matter what_**. The likes of _you_ are actually quite high on the list of what I feel they need to be protected from." With that, Robin immediately put away his staff, bent over, and offered Speedy a hand up. He took the offered hand, and in a moment he was standing again.

"Point taken and duly noted," Speedy managed to sound pleasant about the whole matter, even as he rubbed the throbbing lump on the back of his head. He knew better than to go there again, though in retrospect, the pain was just about worth seeing the extent of Robin's commitment. Internally, on a level that operated independently from his free-spirited, skirt chasing instincts, Speedy's cold intellect came to the conclusion that, if he could just find a way to show it correctly, Robin might actually have enough to serve both the ladies. But then, that thought was crushed by anticipation.

"So now you owe me one man," Speedy stated eagerly, "come—out with it! Tell me the tale of mind-control drugs and alien aphrodisiacs already."

"Ah god… _fine_," Robin went through a series of emotions in a big hurry, then acceded to the marksman's pleading tone. "At this point, it'd probably cheer me up a little _anyway_. So…" he sighed, thought about it for a moment, then began, "It all started late yesterday afternoon. Beast Boy and Cyborg had left that morning to attend a three-day comic book convention and car show, the Ink and Oil Con, so it was just the three of us in the tower…

Future:

Oh HO! What's that I said? Mind control drugs and alien aphrodisiacs? SWEET! Honestly, my ideas for the next chapter are steamy to say the least, and since I fully intend to revert to my classic writing style, you know it's going to be descriptive too. I thought about it for a long time, and eventually just came to the decision that I'd post this first, get the whole '_in medias res_' thing going, then let loose with all my guns in the following chapters.

Besides, wasn't that great? If you _didn't_ like it, please stick around, because I'd like you to give the second chapter a shot. You won't want to miss one incredibly hot moment of it, I assure you. If you _did_ like it, all the better, and this, right below here, is where you can take a moment to tell me about it.


	2. Tea for Two equals Double Trouble

To my readers, be ye loyal or new.

First of all, I'd just like to take a moment to express my amazement at the enormous reviewer response my first chapter received. I've mentioned it a few times already, but I thrive on feedback, I'm a shameless review whore, and I don't care if your words are of encouragement, excitement, or extreme anger, because I read them all, then write back to those who expressed helpful commentary, be it positive, negative, or merely suggestive.

Second of all, I apologize to anyone who's been getting spammed by the author alert function on my account—I have a bad habit of posting fake chapters to get my stories bumped up to the premium exposure slots at the top of the archive listings. Sorry, but a guy's got to get his message out.

Third and final, I have to make one thing clear—this is very much a **_mature_** story. As I said, only my disdain for censorship has kept me from rating it as such—thus the great lengths I went through to disclaim this fact at the story's inception. There's not going to be anything graphic, I'm not a lemon writer by any stretch of the imagination, but if you aren't comfortable with the concept of teens in sexual situations, get the hell out—**_now_**—I'll not hear any complaints. As for the strong language—well hey, that's actually how teenage guys talk during stressful and exciting situations… what do you want from me?

---That said—on with the story!

CAUTION: OMEGA FLUFF SQUARED!

Buckle in fic-fans, because this is **_not_** a hunk of writing for the casual reader's consumption! First of all, it's long as HELL, though I hope to god that won't stop you from giving it a shot. Second, as I stated before, and I'll state again now, **_mature_** themes abound, though nothing truly indecent (in my humble opinion, anyway).

Oh ho… this is great. _Really_. Seriously here, stick through the slow building start and get to the end of this one… it's… oh dang—I can't even _imagine_ how many people I'm going to piss off with this one, because no matter how much fluff I may have hinted at, I don't think I prepared **_anyone_** for **_this_**. People ask me what could turn Robin into a drama queen? Maybe unbridled, two-fisted, system shock of a very personal nature, huh? I've no excuse, nor any remorse… after all, this series is called Twisted Hearts for a reason my friends.

* * *

Second Chapter: Tea for Two equals Double Trouble

Robin was in the new game room shooting some billiards all alone. With Cyborg and Beast Boy out on their trip for the weekend and Raven off with Starfire at some tea house somewhere in the city, the tower was utterly, eerily quiet, and the rather depressive atmosphere that overtook the place with no one else around had sent the Boy Wonder into something of a funk.

He'd been unable to concentrate on training, his long-practiced moves, even the new ones he'd learned from True Master, were so deeply drilled in that they were becoming stale and repetitive in an unbelievable hurry without someone to chat with between maneuver sets. His case files had become unbearably boring, now that Slade wasn't in any position to plot, Brother Blood was on the other side of the country, and the HIVE five were completely MIA. He had none of his team around to whip into combat readiness, the city's petty crime simply _couldn't_ interest him, and he was at the peak of his own physical ability, all of which left the hopeless workaholic completely bereft of his vice of choice.

In other words, he was left in the kind of mood in which a young man can't help but have 'thoughts' occur, particularly of the deep, brooding kind prone to easily exceeding the bounds of what said young man normally considers his limits. At this particular moment, as he set up a new trick shot (the simple mathematics and coordination requirements of a good pool game were no real challenge), his mind was drawn to the uncomfortable question of loneliness in general, but especially his own personal case.

With the tower full of friends, with plenty of work to do, rivals to compete with, and crime to send running back into the shadows, he had always been perfectly content. But now, at times like this, he realized that… well… he was getting a little older, and there were **_different_** ways he could be spending his time. The ever-uncomfortable thought of Starfire's blatant feelings for him came immediately to mind, and as he banked the cue ball off of two opposite walls through an obstacle course of solid color balls to sink a striped one in the corner pocket, idle fantasies about that actually panning out into something began to play behind his eyes.

There were very relevant strictures against relationships in the workplace… and pure professionalism (as well as more than a little gutless embarrassment) had kept him from responding to her constant crushing. It wasn't as though he'd have known _how_ to respond, even if he'd _managed_ to find the testicular fortitude, considering romance hadn't been part of the education the old man had passed down, but in his own mind, it was definitely nice to think of what could happen there. He punctuated the pleasant fantasies by popping off a hop shot, clearing the cue ball over his target, the backspin forcing it to reverse direction and knock the ball it had just jumped right into the side pocket.

His dreaming, brooding, and showy cue-handling probably would have continued late into the night, if his communicator hadn't picked that particular time to chime. The sudden noise shocked him from his reverie, and only a quick save kept him from scratching the table's surface with his ruined shot. Cussing shamelessly, he turned to look where his comm. unit lay on top of the pinball machine, its flashing and beeping shattering the Tower's pristine silence. For a long moment, Robin **_seriously_** considered simply **_not_** answering it… after all, the last four calls had been Beast Boy harassing him for more money from down at the convention he and the metal man had gone to. Sometimes being the team's procurement overseer really blew, and B.B. in particular was always after him to authorize pointless expenditures. Right around the fifth repetition of his ring tone, Robin snapped, picked up the comm. unit and flipped it open.

"DUDE, you seriously _are **not**_ going to believe what I just found down here!" Beast Boy's distinctive voice screamed out of the tiny video screen the very moment it clicked on, and Robin instantly regretted his weak inability to just **_not_** answer the phone. "I mean, can you **_believe_** it! Issue **_fourteen_** man!" he screamed, holding the camera up to some display case Robin couldn't even almost make any sense of. "And not **_just_** issue fourteen, but one of the only seventeen printed with the special **_holographic_**_ page twenty **insert**_!"

"I'm not clearing you anymore money B.B." Robin stated flatly, then shut the comm. unit decisively and flopped it back onto the pinball machine's glass casing. No sooner had he taken his hand off of it than it began to ring again, and, feeling ever so slightly guilty for so tersely rejecting his friend, he sighed deeply and answered it again.

"That was **_cold_** Robin," Beast boy said to him as soon as the signal opened. "I mean, I come to you in my time of need, and all I ask for is a little money… but here you go hanging up on me and—"  
"Would you calm down B.B.?" Robin begged in exasperation, "I mean, I've already advanced you three months on you expense account, what more do you want from me? And why can't you be more like Cyborg? He **_never_** asks me for advance pay."

"Cyborg!" Beast Boy echoed him in utter disgust, "Don't get me started on him Robin, that guy is **_dead_** to me. I mean, you'd think an engineering prodigy with a lifetime research grant and pension from S.T.A.R. Labs would spread the love around a little, but **_NOOO_**. My god… what I would **_do_** if I were independently wealthy like that…"

"Honestly, is this conversation going someplace man?" Robin asked in complete exasperation as his friend continued to ramble on and on.

"Of course it is!" Beast Boy snapped indignantly, "It's going to the best place of all! The place where **_you_** send **_me_** more money! If it's a problem of collateral, I can put my gamestation and all the games up as the balance until I catch up on my expense accounts—I promise man!"

"Would this be the same gamestation you already put up as collateral on the loan I gave you a month ago…?" Robin asked, already knowing for a fact that it was. Robin loved Beast Boy, really, he'd lay his life down for the fuzzy bugger, but if there was one thing that he couldn't deny, it was that the little guy had the money management skills of a retarded shrew, and his memory for the status of his overdraw was equally pathetic.

"**_No_**…" Beast Boy sputtered nervously, "this is my… **_other_** gamestation… uh… the one I keep to—"

"I'm hanging up now," Robin cut him off, and he was halfway to cutting the line when a sudden yelling caught his ear and he reluctantly pulled it back up to his face.

"Gesse, just hold on one more minute." Beast Boy muttered unhappily, at least having apparently given up on harassing him for money. "I just need to ask if Raven is around there."

"No… she and Starfire went out to some tea place like an hour ago. Why?"

"Nothing, no problem, I just couldn't get a hold of her. I wanted to ask her if she wanted the newest copy of Moody Girl Comics—**_that's_** at least within my price range."

Robin ignored the not so subtle snipe about money as he silently wondered why Beast Boy hadn't been able to reach her. It wasn't like the dark young woman to turn off her communicator, even when she was meditating, and even though he wasn't particularly worried, it still struck the responsible young leader as rather off. In any case, he took the opportunity to give B.B. a hard time, simple payback after the guy's constant annoyance.

"I don't know what's going on," Robin admitted, "but what's this about comic books? Is this that one series you tried to get her to start reading for like, _four_ **_hours_** of non-stop pestering, until she was so ticked off she accidentally vaporized the couch?"

"No, _of_ **_course_** _not_," Beast Boy said it like Robin was stupid to have even suggested such a thing, and the Boy Wonder breathed a sigh of relief. "This," the green one continued, "is the series she **_already_** liked—but I didn't **_know_** she liked it—so I started making fun of it one day after hearing this great joke about people who read them… and she got so ticked off she accidentally sent Silky to another dimension for three hours."

"**_Ah_**, right—" Robin remembered that instantly, and **_not_** with fondness, "we couldn't get Starfire to stop crying for one second until the little guy was safely back." Robin paused as thoughts of what it felt like to watch Starfire be inconsolable with grief passed through his lower abdomen in an unpleasant way, then he hazarded his best guess in response to Beast Boy's questions. "Well I'm sure Raven would appreciate the gesture if you **_do_** get it for her." He actually thought it was kind of sweet that the fuzzy one would think of her while out having fun.

"That's **_not_** the point," Beast Boy corrected him thoughtlessly, "I just need to make sure she doesn't already have it so I don't waste the two-fifty on the extra copy. Thanks to you, I'm on a tight budget out here! And how about it man, I really could use the extra money… just this once? **_Please_**!"

Robin blanched at the little guy's blatant selfishness, stunned by what a difference there was in his personality when he got it into his head that he wanted something. As the green one continued to needle him about money, Robin pulled a micro jammer out of his utility belt and held it near the comm. unit's antenna, fizzing out the signal badly.

"Oh man, I'm loosing the signal B.B.!" he shouted shamelessly over the interference noise, more than ready to end this conversation but not wanting to hear the bitching that would come later from a flat out rejection here. "The aliens must be messing with our satellite connection again! I'd better get right on that!"

"Hey! **_NO_**! I **_know_** you're jamming the feed damn you—GIVE ME MONEY!" Beast Boy screamed, but that was around the time Robin cut the line for good. With a sigh of relief, Robin pitched the comm. unit onto the floor behind him, taking up the pool cue again and chalking the tip with a jaunty bit of flair. Incredibly pleased to be away from B.B.'s harassment, even if it did mean a return to quiet brooding, he began to hum a pleasant tune. Finally, he spun the cue for a few seconds like it was his fighting staff, then began setting up his next shot. He was just about to try a special curving shot when, you guessed it, the communicator went off _yet_ **_again_**.

Resisting the urge to snap his cue in half, Robin began to cuss under his breath in exceptional excess, wringing his hands around the piece of wood in his grip as he ground his teeth together, frustrated as much by the interruption as he was by himself for neglecting to remove the damn thing's power source. None the less, after about six runs through the ring tone, when he was basically **_certain_** the person calling **_wasn't_** going to give up, he walked over, snatched it off the floor, and flipped it open.

"Damnit B.B., I'm **_NOT_** going to give you _any more **money**_!" He shouted into the tiny screen without waiting to see who it was.

"Oh… I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?" asked a calm, utterly strange male voice, and Robin's mind skidded completely out of whack as he turned to stare in stunned silence at the view screen. What stared back was a full-face shroud of a deep blue with two eye slats revealing sinister brown irises.

"Who the _hell_ are **_you_**?" Robin asked flatly, too far past surprised by the unexpected caller to put it any more tactfully than that.

"I am called Ravager," the stranger stated, his voice cold and businesslike, "and my duly contracted task is to **_execute_** you, Robin."

"**_What_**?" and it was more confusion than shock or anger in Robin's response, "is this some kind of **_joke_**? Wait… that's **_you_** isn't it, **_Cyborg_**? This is another one of your CGI gags! _Hey_—did Beast Boy put you up to this?"

"Enough," Ravager stated simply, more annoyed than angry at his obvious incredulity, "the one thing I can _assure_ you that this is **_not_**," and he put a dangerous emphasis on the word, "is a **_joke_**. To show you just how serious I am, I've taken the liberty of acquiring hostages you might be interested in rescuing."

Without explaining further or commenting on Robin's utterly stunned expression, the view on the comm. screen changed to a sight that made the young hero's blood freeze in his veins. Two women were in the shot, each hung up by their wrists tied above them with chains as they dangled in the air, completely still and silent. On the left was Starfire, and on the right was Raven.

"**_Damn_** _you_!" Robin screamed, loosing all rationality in a flash of blind rage, "**_what_**_ did you **do** to them_? _If_ _you_ _harmed_ **_one_** _hair_—"

"I'm not here to harm **_them_** Robin, I've come to kill **_you_**," Ravager was pristinely cool as he made this point clear, "However, their safety is of **_no_** consequence to me, and will be in a great deal of jeopardy if you don't arrive at this location, **_alone_**, within ten minutes. Come to the door and knock twice. Failure to arrive in time will be penalized. Failure to come alone will be penalized. **_Any_** failure to comply **_will_** be **_penalized_**. The penalty:" and the shot panned out to show that the two women were suspended over a pool of boiling molten iron. "I hope we have an understanding. Your time starts now—Goodbye." As the image of his captured friends blanked out with the transmission's end, a text message with an address of some random place in the factory district crawled across the empty space.

Robin memorized the address with a glance, then snapped the comm. unit shut and flung it full out at the wall with an accompanying scream of incoherent fury. The sturdy device buried into the metal with a **_clang_**, sticking fast. There was blood on his mind, an incomprehensible red rage overcoming his vision as he seethed in bubbling hate. He hadn't felt like this since the last face off with Slade, and as far as he could tell, there was no particular reason he should have gotten so furious. Before he could examine his emotions further, it occurred to him that he was running out of time.

Within the space of two deep breaths, Robin had himself under control. In a flash, he was out and into the hall, setting his chronometer with a ten minute timer as he dashed full-tilt for the elevator. Without slowing, he pounded a button opposite the elevator doors rather than the call button next to them, and then channeled all his speed into a twisting flip that threw him into the suddenly open shaft. Sliding down the cables, he made it to the garage floor in seconds, rolling out into a front flip that landed him on his R-cycle, ignition on and set ready to drive by the same button that had popped open the elevator. Thirteen seconds from the moment the transmission ended, he was burning rubber.

Factory District—eight minutes and forty seconds later.

Ravager stood in the large, abandoned foundry quite patiently, one hand holding a timer and the other holding the controls for the chains suspending the two women. His rigid body armor was an all-over blue, the washed-out sky coloring striking a gentle contrast to the utter jet black of the weaponry that fairly dripped from his frame. Guns, swords, knives, grenades—all were strapped to his arms, legs, and chest, all over that odd, almost haunting blue armor.

It was getting to within a minute of the appointed time, and he listened carefully for his target's arrival, his thumb hovering over the switch that would dunk his hostages into the molten metal they were hanging above. He did not expect to have to use it, as in his experience, characters like Robin universally caved to threats against helpless women and children, but he would not hesitate to enforce punctuality. He wanted to get this over with and collect his paycheck.

A sudden buzzing of a very loud engine became ever so faintly audible in the distance, and Ravager let off the button as a smile spread across his face under the solid blue shroud. The engine quickly grew louder, and then louder still, and after this had continued for about ten seconds, Ravager realized something was wrong. By pure instinct, he managed to throw himself prone, only instants before all hell broke loose.

The main truck loading door started the party by exploding in a burst of smoke and flying steel, a red streak blurring in through the porthole the next second. The R-Cycle flipped and twisted in midair, and by the time it landed, all the forward motion had been transformed into rotational motion by the gyro-pad it had extended from one side and planted into the ground. The whole thing twirling like a dynamo, the same side-mounted cannon that had opened the door began to fire in high-speed bursts.

Like a decorative fountain of death, the spinning vehicle blossomed into a flurry of shocking white energy blasts that darted almost randomly around the room, blowing holes in the walls, vaporizing structural supports, eradicating rusty old iron-smelting machinery, and generally wrecking the joint. Tucked safely below the machine's minimum shot angle, Ravager was still stunned by this fantastically reckless attack, the falling debris, sparks, and licks of intense flame from the symphony of destruction above him keeping him badly pinned. After about ten seconds of non-stop shooting, however, the cannon clicked empty, and the bike began to decelerate, finally coming to a complete stop, kicking itself back upright, and then driving itself back out the way it had come in.

As the bike disappeared through the wreckage, Ravager pulled himself to his feet, brushing himself off for a moment, and then drawing a pistol from the wide selection arrayed on his chest. He glared unpleasantly through the smoke and dust the firestorm had kicked up, and was rewarded by spotting a confidently upright silhouette in the haze.

"Hey Ravager," Robin's voice came from that direction, unpleasantly hot and vicious, "**_Knock_**… **_Knock_**…"

"That was regrettably rash of you Robin," Ravager muttered, quietly infuriated by the boy's unexpected belligerence. "Penalty time—" and he stomped down on the crane controls, detaching the claws that held Starfire and Raven's chains. Before he heard more than the mechanical clack of the crane claws opening, the smoke parted in a rush of hissing gas propellant, the Boy Wonder shooting a grapple in each hand right over Ravager's head. The high-velocity cords slung up over the rafters and twisted downward in a blur to wrap neatly around the chains binding the two unconscious women, jerking them to a stop before they'd fallen more than a few feet toward the glowing hot molten metal below.

Ravager turned back to Robin with an expression twisted by impressed shock under his mask, then continued to stare in amazement as, overburdened by the weight of both women at once, the young man jerked back and fired secondary grapples from the backs of the two-sided launchers he held, burying anchor cords into the floor behind him, leaving the women suspended safely like food hung up and out of reach of bears. Snapping out of it, Ravager pointed his pistol, only for a metallic ringing and a flare of pain in his hand to announce that he'd hesitated too long, an inconceivably sharp birdarang having sliced his weapon in half and cut his hand in the process.

Snarling in pain, he made for another gun, only to have a very irate martial artist dogging his grill much too quickly to manage it. Robin dashed in like an angry bobcat, two-fisted assault made particularly dangerous by the birdarangs he was wielding like knives. Ravager was no stranger to such tactics, and despite his surprise, he was able to keep one step ahead of Robin, dodging backward away from each and every strike, innumerable blows just barely grazing his body as they went wide over his shoulders or past his flanks. Finally, he saw his opening, and with a stiff knee, punted Robin back on his heels, forcing him to flip away and bringing a lull to the melee.

"My, you _are_ **_certainly_** as good as they say young man," Ravager taunted as he gasped for air, staring out from behind his plain blue shroud to leer threateningly at his opponent.

"No… I'm better," Robin said, not the slightest hint of arrogance, or anything else, in his tone. Ravager threw his head back to laugh, when the sudden sound of dozens of metal objects hitting the ground and the simultaneous lightening of his body drew his gaze immediately back downward with a gasp. Ravager's blood began to run cold with fear when he saw what had happened. Apparently, he hadn't been hit in that exchange because the boy hadn't been **_trying_** to hit him, rather, the Kevlar straps of his weapons harness had been surgically dissected right of his body. He was effectively disarmed.

"_You_—_You_—_how could **you** have **done** that_!" Ravager bellowed in utter disbelief as he reached down and pulled his katana from the pile of jet black weaponry on the floor. Robin made no move to stop him, but actually waited for him to draw his weapon and take up a combat stance.

"Perhaps, when you pulled whatever sneaky shit it took to capture **_those_** _two_," Robin answered detachedly, his eyes cold as he focused on Ravager, each hand still brandishing a birdarang, "you didn't **_quite_** realize who you were dealing with here. We're the Teen Titans, and **_I'm_** their leader, and from the looks of things, we're **_way_** out of **_your_** league."

"**_We'll see_**," Ravager muttered, infuriated beyond reason by the young man's ice-cold taunts, even more than he was by his own general failure so far.

With those words, the large man in blue lunged, prompting Robin to flip away and fling his two ready weapons. Ravager deflected each easily and followed through, slicing in at Robin only to have his strike parried by an interposed staff. He withdrew and struck again, then riposted neatly off the hero's second block, catching a piece of his shoulder and flicking his blood across the room. When he paused to emit a victorious bark of laughter, Robin caught him on the kneecap with the staff, bending him over and squelching his good humor into a whimper of agony.

When Ravager tried to parry the follow up, Robin's staff split along an invisible seam, becoming two clubs attached by an internal steel wire. Before his very eyes, Ravager's sword was wrapped up by the steel wire, and then Robin twisted it to the ground with unbearable torque, stomping on the blade and shattering it along a seam that shouldn't have existed. In numb shock, Ravager realized that he must have cracked the blade himself when he parried those birdarangs.

Now Ravager tried to throw a punch from his knees, but Robin caught his wrist and scrambled nimbly around his guard, wrapping the steel wire around his throat once and twisting the clubs until the cord was unbearably tight. He fought viciously against the strangulation, but it was really no use, and after an intense two minutes of struggling, he blacked out.

"Ah, hello Mr. Ravager," Robin's voice was the first thing to greet him when he came to. He tried to get up reflexively, only to find that he was securely bound, the chains that had held the two women tying his hands behind his back and his legs together. "I trust you had a pleasant nap?" Robin was being purposely malicious, grinding in his utter victory even as he tried in vain to rouse the two young women, who he'd lain out on some old tables that had miraculous survived the firestorm his motorbike had created.

"Go to **_hell_**," Ravager muttered, resigned to a night at the police station before his underworld contacts could sneak him out again. Thoroughly embarrassed and completely furious, he wasn't in the mood for banter.

"Oh, a sore looser are we?" Robin taunted, his voice loosing some of its edge as he finally gave up trying to rouse the women, "maybe now you'll think twice before you commit kidnappings and attempt murder… once you're gotten out of **_jail_** anyway. But before I turn you over to the cops…" and his tone became sinister, "You're **_going_** to tell me who **_sent_** you, and you're **_going_** to tell me **_what_** you did to my **_friends_**."

"**_Screw you_**," Ravager stated flatly, fully aware of his rights. He wasn't saying shit, nothing could make him incriminate himself to this little punk.

"Hmmm…" Robin did not look happy all of a sudden, his mildly neutral, condescending attitude transforming into a seriously dangerous frown. "Let me 'rephrase' that," he said, drawing the crane controls out from behind his back. Ravager had enough time to realize he was still underestimating this guy before a sudden jerk at the chains on his legs yanked him upward into the air. He was twirling around by his feet on the same crane he'd been using to hold the women hostage, and Robin walked up to look him in the eye where he hung upside down.

"**_I'm_** gonna ask you a question," the young man stated simply, hard eyes revealing nothing, "and **_you're_** going to answer. Failure to answer correctly will be penalized. The penalty:" and he suddenly shoved Ravager harshly, setting the crane into a slow swinging motion.

The assassin didn't realize what was happening until the intensely hot molten iron was already searing his face through the mask. Looking 'up' into the boiling metal only inches from his face was enough to evict a wailing scream of terror from the hardened killer, the unreal heat baking his skin unbearably for the long seconds of his swing out and subsequent return. Finally, Robin caught him like a side of beef on a meat hook, turning him around to look him in the eye again.

"So… who sent you," Robin asked again, perfectly calm, "and what did you do to my friends?"

"**_I_**_… **won't**… **talk**…_" Ravager gasped out, trying to catch his breath from all the screaming, his skin tingling where it had been slightly burned straight through his armor. Robin didn't even **_almost_** hesitate, he just gave Ravager another shove, immediately setting him out on another searing-hot swing. He was ready for it this time, and managed not to scream on the orbit out, right up until Robin lowered him a single, viciously jerking inch closer to the iron, eliciting a whole new pitch of scream as he reflexively believed he would be imminently dumped in. When he swung back, it was to be far too close to the molten metal, its heat actually lighting his shroud on fire, cranking him up to an even more frantic level of terror as he began to twist and jerk in an utter panic. The instant Robin caught him again, he was whimpering in shrill gasps.

"_I'll **talk**—**I'll** **talk**—just—fire!— the** fire**_!" and Ravager was barely able to articulate his piteous request through the hyperventilating distress gripping his chest, the licking flames dancing up over his shroud in a quickly heating flare. Robin didn't answer, he merely pulled something off his belt and pitched it at Ravager's head. The tiny capsule exploded in his face, spreading a cloud of chill foam all over with a dull thump. With the fire out, and the better half of his body dripping with fire extinguisher foam, Ravager was left to cool off for a second, his face now partially exposed through the hole burnt in his mask.

"Alright scumbag… **_talk_**," Robin commanded, and this time it was Ravager who didn't hesitate.

"It was this guy—some whack job I met out east in Gotham—he wore clown makeup and a goofy purple suit!" he was whimpering out the information between sobs of slowly receding terror.

"The Joker…" Robin confirmed with a quickly deepening frown on his face.

"**_Whatever_**—" Ravager clearly didn't care, trying to get out his story before Robin gave him another trip over the firepit, "I just took the guy's money and the stuff he gave me for the job—said he wanted me to off you—said I'd need hostages! I didn't want to mess with that—I'm a killer, not a kidnapper—but he wouldn't pay me if I didn't use the stuff he gave me to drug those girls! Honest—I don't know what it was, I just doctored their drinks!"

"Fine—that's good enough for now," Robin walked back up to the hanging man again, pulling something from his belt. "I hope the Joker paid you well—and in advance—because you'll need it to get a good lawyer. With a confession like that, the cops won't have any trouble gathering evidence for a conviction." That stated, Robin slipped a datachip, ostensibly containing a recording of what the man had just blurted out, out of his belt and attached it to a blinking transmitter that would almost certainly draw the cops, sticking it to Ravager's chest. Leaving the man hanging, he turned back to his two unconscious friends.

"You—You're **_sick_** man! That was **_torture_**!" Ravager screamed at his back, "you're **_supposed_** to be a **_good_** _guy_—_you're **not aloud** to do that_!" Robin actually paused, though he didn't turn, and Ravager instantly regretted opening his mouth again as he saw the young man tense.

"Yeah… you're probably right," Robin said calmly, "But you know… when people mess with those two…" and his voice reached a rather strange, sort of confused tone, "I loose what little sense of humor I have... and things like this just don't seem as wrong as they once might have."

"Ohhh…" Ravager seemed to realize something, "You've got a 'thing' for one of them don't—"(**_smack_**) he was silenced by an expertly thrown rock clocking him on the head, knocking him senseless.

That finished with, Robin walked back over to the table he'd left the ladies on and considered, with rapidly growing terror, what kind of sick drug the Joker had gotten them pumped full of. He had to get them back to the Tower pronto, but he couldn't transport two unconscious women on a motorcycle…

"I wish you'd wake up…" he muttered to himself, suddenly feeling incredibly helpless—even considering the way he'd completely dominated that sorry excuse for an assassin.

"Yes…" There was an immediate response, and Robin nearly jumped out of his skin as Raven actually sat up, groaning quietly and moving a hand to her head, making a spontaneous recovery, as though in answer to his despondent wish.

"Raven?" Robin asked stupidly, too stunned to see her so suddenly awake to articulate anything more appropriate for the happy occasion, "are you alright?"

"Robin…" Raven responded, lifting her hooded eyes to fix him with a frighteningly distant stare, "I feel… **_strange_**…" she said, and her voice was slow and broken, as though she was speaking from a dream.

"My god, I can't believe it—you were drugged and you just… **_got_** **_up_**!" Robin made his wonder clear, sounding very much like an idiot in his total shock, walking forward quickly to put an arm around her shoulder and help her to her feet. When she didn't make any answer to his comment, he asked, "Do you remember what happened? Do you think you'll be okay?"

"I… **_we_** were at my favorite poetry café…" Raven answered numbly, obviously still badly disoriented even as Robin helped her to stand, "Starfire and I… we were just listening to another reading… when we were served tea we didn't order. The waiter said it was from… this guy sitting at the bar..."

"**_Right_**—" Robin immediately thought of Ravager, a flash of anger boiling through his brain, "continue, please."

"I didn't want it…" Raven seemed to want to make this clear, "but Starfire refused to reject the gift, and she nearly poured it down my throat… before I could explain what it meant when a strange guy buys you a drink. I noticed the flavor right away… I knew we'd been drugged… but Starfire drank hers before I could stop her. She started to choke on it immediately… and it was all I could do to teleport us outside… into an alley… before I began to loose consciousness."

Raven was still talking as though it were an incredible effort to form words, and as Robin moved down to try and look more closely into her eyes, he noticed a disturbing blankness behind her stare. Even though she was clearly addressing him, she seemed to be looking right through him. The effect was beyond eerie, even for Raven, and Robin's pulse began to pound as he started to realize just how bad things still were.

"I don't know what happened after that but…" Raven continued to answer his questions, as though she couldn't see the look of deepening horror on his face, or as though it didn't matter that he was turning deathly pale. "…as for how I'm doing… my powers seem weak… and it's hard to think. I feel… **_strange_**…"

"Raven…" Robin said with a tremor in his voice, "you're freaking me out here. Come on… say something snide… make a biting remark about the situation—do **_something_**!"

"Yes…" she said, in that same strange voice she'd woken up with, "… how can it be taking the best detective in the city…" she began, voice still empty, but now containing that unique stinging edge she used when making her classic commentary, "… so long to find out what's wrong here?"

The remark cut through volumes of confusion that had been plaguing Robin's mind, and the realization hit him like a battering ram to the brain. His breath caught in his throat for a moment, so heavily did the knowledge affect him, and he found himself compelled to check, to attempt to prove himself wrong.

"Raven… hop on one foot," he said flatly, and edge of desperate hope in his tone, perhaps the only time he'd ever wished to be snubbed and stabbed by a dirty look from the mystic. Instead, his heart dropped out of his chest, because the woman immediately conformed to his whim, bending her left leg and bouncing on her right continually, her cloak billowing around her as she moved. He simply watched in stunned, heart-broken silence as she obeyed his command, shaking his head in quietly disgusted denial. Finally, she began to loose her balance, and he darted in to catch her, her body still trying to hop despite the fact that she was held securely in his arms, her hood falling away as she leaned back into his arms.

"Raven, stop," he managed to force his mouth to work, spectacular volumes of fear and grief working their way out of his heart and into his voice as he realized the depth of suffering his friend was being subjected to. For a private, quietly sensitive woman like her to be violated like this… I began to wring at his heart.

"Yes…" she answered again, her body stilling in his arms as he lifted her back over to the table where Starfire still lay.

"Are you… are you under the effects of a mind control drug?" Robin heard himself ask her outright as he helped her to sit up on the table, and his heart exploded into a fierce tempo as he watched her body stiffen and tremble suddenly, as though his question had served as a key to unlock a great agony lurking beneath the drug-induced calm.

"I think I—I think I **_must_** be," she said, her voice lacking any emotion, but her demeanor speaking directly to Robin's heart. Even as he watched, a single tear welled out of her eye and rand down her cheek, his chest seeming to bleed in turn as he watched it go.

"Can you… can you tell me how it works?" Robin asked, a distinct tremor of desperation creeping in where only quiet confidence had reigned mere minutes ago. Raven was in such obvious pain, her misery becoming more and more apparent with every question he asked, as though it were only through his queries that she could reveal her feelings.

"I… I can't seem… to do anything… anything that I'm not asked to do. It's… _terrifying_…" and Robin felt a pulse of electric pain run through him at hearing this admission from her, "It's like… like I'm watching someone else… control me from behind my own eyes."

"Oh God—I'm—I can't **_believe_** I let this **_happen_**!" Robin nearly wailed, squeezing Raven's hand with one of his as he clenched the other into a tight fist, his normal calm self seeming to take a backseat in his own mind much as Raven had described for herself, piercing grief rather than drugs being the culprit in his case. "I'll—I'll take care of you—you'll get better, I promise!" She did not answer, though her trembling increased markedly, and suddenly he recognized a new aspect of this terrible agent. "Okay?" he asked her, and her trembling slowed instantly as words poured forth from her mouth, showing with grim certainty that she could not bring herself to speak unless asked a question.

"Robin… it's okay…" her empty voice assured him, her glazed eyes still staring through him rather than back into his masked ones, and those simple words brought him spectacular waves of relief, as though he'd expected her to blame him for what had happened. "It's not your fault… I **_trust_** you…" she whispered, as though she was barely able to speak with such a vague question to grant her the drug's permission, "but Starfire… help… Starfire…"

Robin's heart did a sudden, gut-wrenching flip-flop, even as he gripped Raven's hand to comfort her through the drug-induced haze. Starfire… that fucking loon had done the same thing to her, and there was an unbearable roaring of his own pulse in his ears as Robin turned to look down at where the fair woman still lay motionless on the table.

"Starfire… get up," he commanded her in the barest whisper, holding out utterly irrational hope that she would remain still, that she was not under the same accursed spell that currently gripped Raven. Suddenly, his insane hope took on a burning, flaring, iridescent new life—because Starfire did indeed remain perfectly, senselessly, unconscious.

"Starfire—GET UP!" Robin screamed, words normally tinged with desperation and terror instead infused with an almost manic glee as the young man was overrun by hope that she had somehow avoided the drug's effects. When she still refused to obey, Robin could have cried in relief, instead leaning over to take great gasping breaths of air, trying to bring his pulse under control.

"Do you think… do you think she might be okay?" Robin asked Raven, who still sat as he'd left her, distant and dreamy-eyed. It was clear that hope was holding out in his voice, but Raven managed to crush that quite perfectly with her heartless, numb response.

"The drug didn't seem to affect her the same way as me," Raven answered, her voice gaining continuity as the part of the drug that had forced her to black out continued to dissipate, "from the way it choked her… it may have **_poisoned_** her."

That did it, and Robin felt the world crumble out from beneath him in a whole new way, any solace he might have received from Starfire's unbreakable silence suddenly mutating into a new, horrible, gut-wrenching fear for her very life. With this burning fear came a new resolve, and Robin managed to flush all uncertainty from his mind as his consciousness funneled down to focus on the singular need to rescue the golden skinned beauty so frighteningly still before him.

"Raven, help me get her onto the R-Cycle," Robin commanded, seeming pained but fully in control of himself at last. With a wave of his hand over his belt, the aforementioned vehicle came rolling right back in again, and he climbed on.

"Yes…" Raven said again, apparently how she was going to respond to all of his direct commands, then set to work, using what little of her power she could muster to heft Starfire off the table and situate her against his back on the vehicle. As the beauty was pressed against his back, he took her hands in his and wrapped them around his chest, his breath quickening against his will at the incredible proximity this created between them. Pressing such thoughts from his mind quickly, he motioned to Raven, who got on behind Starfire and wrapped her arms around both of them, pressing forward relentlessly to squeeze onto the crowded sport bike, sandwiching Starfire even more tightly to his back and squeezing onto his uniform with both her own hands and Starfire's held under them to keep the unconscious woman immobile. It was all very… **_close_**… and he tried desperately not to let it get to him as he kicked it into gear and rode them out of the almost completely obliterated factory.

Back at Titans Tower

The Titans Tower medical facilities were by far the best on the west coast, fully computerized with automated diagnosis and care giving mechanisms designed and tested by their own resident mechanical genius, Cyborg. Perhaps that's why it was so frustrating that Robin made so very little headway on Starfire and Raven.

"God damn piece of junk!" he screamed at the computer screen impotently, infuriated by its inability to go any faster in its analysis process. Starfire could be dying for all he knew, and the damn computer just kept telling him to be patient. Only the utmost of his self control kept him from kicking the sadistic device until his foot hurt too much to kick it anymore. As it was, he found himself pacing back and forth in the main medical area, stopping each pass to glance into where Starfire lay immobile on her hospital bed, ever under the blank, frighteningly calm stare of Raven where she sat on her bed passively waiting for some external source to compel her movements and speech.

It was an all around distressing experience, two people he'd gladly give up his own life to save suffering through tortures that even now haunted his imagination's darker side. Raven, a silent prisoner in her own body, forced to watch as her movements become subject to—nay, fully _relied_ upon the whim and command of others. Starfire, fevered, sweating, frighteningly warm to the touch, mumbling incoherently at disturbing intervals as some invisible demon plagued her drugged dreams. It was enough to eat Robin apart from the inside out, and it would most likely have managed to at least make him puke if the situation didn't change so suddenly.

The terminal displaying the agonizingly slow progress bar for the ladies' blood work suddenly chimed, snapping him out of his funk as a priority e-mail arrived earmarked for him. Hardly expecting to hear from anyone, at least not by such an indirect means, his curiosity overcame his distress, and he walked over to the computer and opened the file, bringing the video mail up on the enormous med-bay computer screen. It was instantly filled with a sinisterly familiar calling card, the wild card actually, the excess of the 52… the Joker.

"HEehhehehehehhe!" that laughter, that completely insane, grating cackle that had often come to haunt Robin's nightmares, even years now after he'd left Gotham behind, erupted from the speakers as that sickening clown's face filled the screen. Robin felt his guts clench in a combination of fear and fury as years of old conflict combined with the immediate crisis in one boiling vessel of cautious hate. He said nothing as the prerecorded message began to play.

"Why **_hello_** _there_ little Robin!" began the Joker in his manic voice, slipping out his words past the hideously enormous, distorted smile he bore at all times, "This is a little season's greetings from your old pal, _Uncle_ **_Joker_**! After all, what's the point of sending you all the gifts I owe you for missed Birthdays, Christmases, Easters, Quanzas, Hanukkahs, Valentine's Days, Groundhog's Days, and—my _personal_ **_favorite_**—April Fool's days… unless I sent a card along **_too_**?" As he spoke, the screen focused on his face, the bright red lips and green hair set off against the powder white skin, and Robin was almost mesmerized by the theatrical sight as he wondered what on earth the nut job was talking about.

"By the time you get this message, that simpleton Ravager will already have delivered the package, and so you should have the gifts by now--EeeeHeheheheheh," he opened with that screeching cackle again, "I took the **_liberty_** of combining **_all_** your gifts into one pretty little package for your **_enjoyment_** and **_convenience_**," and there was a particularly unhinged edge to his voice as he finished, "and I do **_sooo_** hope you like what I got for you."

"What in the **_hell_**…" Robin muttered aloud, as the image on screen panned out to show all of Joker, who happened to be sporting that sharply tailored purple suit as he stood in front of a non-descript table holding a bevy of colorful objects.

"And now, since I know you're _just_ **_like_** Old **_Batsy_** as far as getting the joke goes," the Joker began in a less manic and much more dangerous tone, his smile becoming cruel rather than merely unhinged, "A little **_demonstration_** for you! You see, your gift—" his voice soured dangerously, "if that **_bird_**_-**brain** of yours_ hadn't **_figured_**_ it **out**_ yet—" and he snapped back to a more pleasantly insane voice, "is a set of _wonderful_ _little_ **_dollies_**!" and Robin's guts clenched in reflexive shock as the Joker proceeded to lift two rag-dolls off the table, each of which was clearly modeled after one of the two women in the next room.

"I know all you little boys are after toy guns and tanks and nerve gas dispensers… or at least I was at that age…" and Joker seemed to reminisce for a moment, holding the two dolls up to his face as he stared off into the distance theatrically, "but since **_Batsy_**" and his face twisted into an angry mask as he said the name, "so **_obviously_** spoils you **_rotten_** with such wonderful devices **_already_**… I decided I'd give you something you could really **_dig_** _your_ **_teeth_** _into_…… **_Action_** **_Figures_**!" and he said the last with a deranged squeal of delight as he twirled around in circles, holding the dolls out at arms length and letting them flap in the wind.

"They're quite **_delightful_** little **_toys_** Robin!" Joker screamed into the camera as he came to a sudden stop, and the shot panned in to focus on his hands and the table in front of him. "Voice activated with realistic superpower action! All you have to do is give them a command and they're helpless to do anything but what you say!" Suddenly, he set the two girl dolls down next to what was distinctly a doll of Robin, and Robin felt a sudden chill run along his spine. "_For_ _example_—!" the joker was screaming in barely contained glee now, "I say 'girls, **_destroy_** Boy Blunder for Uncle Joker!'"

With that, the chill along Robin's spine exploded into a fire of panic as he turned on his heel, simply too late, Joker having slipped it right past him. He had just enough time to see a fully powered-up Raven standing in the doorway to their hospital room before a black claw leapt from the floor and crushed his body in a chilling embrace. His voice was squelched by the forceful squeeze before he could hope to command her to stop, and the next thing he knew he was being flung through the air, Raven using him like a battering ram on the nearest wall. Each resounding smack sent a pulse of agony through his body, the black grip so tight it denied him even the release of screams, the whole nightmare set to the baleful sound of the Joker's recorded glee, the twisted cackle permeating every inch of his mind as he was washed with pain.

After a body-wracking series of staccato impacts, Raven released the grip from his chest long enough to start the process of dragging him into a choking pool of shadows. The unreal ice-cold was enough to promise him a one-way trip to eternity should he become fully enveloped, and he took the opportunity to gasp in a breath of air and bellow, "Raven, Stop!"

"Yes…" she answered, and the ground spat him out like a lump of bad pasta, sending him sprawling. The Joker's unbearable laughter was still filling the room, and pressing the issue of consoling the helplessly obedient Raven to the side for a moment, Robin dragged his pummeled body over to the screen, which was currently paused with a simple, utterly 'Joker' question overlaying the image. 'Still alive?' it asked, with the option to select yes or no, with the 'no' box highlighted. Boiling with anger through the incredible pain, he gritted his teeth and selected the 'yes' option, determined to see this through. Joker was just insane enough to give him a clue to curing their condition.

"Aww **_poopy_**, that's too bad," the scene snapped back into motion, the Joker assuming a rather bored and disappointed expression all of a sudden, his expansive smile becoming an equally distorted frown. He picked something out of his ear distractedly, rolled it into a ball and flicked it away, then suddenly perked up a little. "Then again, it's not like I actually **_expected_** it to work—just keeping you on your toes for old times sake! Heeehehehehhe!" the laugh grated even more than the others, Robin very eager at this point to get it over with. "I just wish I could have seen the expression on your face… I'll bet it was something like this!" and he picked up the Robin doll and squeezed it mercilessly, forcing its eyes to bulge out in goofy angles and emit a peeping sound, then he burst out into unstoppable insane laughter yet again. It went on and on, Robin using the time to check for fractures in his pain-wracked body, and then at last, finally petered out.

"Oh my…" he stopped to catch his breath, using the Robin doll to dab tears from the corners of his eyes before flinging it carelessly off screen, "my but this may be good news **_after_** **_all_**… because now **_you'll_** get a chance to play with your toys **_too_**! I wish you many happy hours of antics as you try to formulate an antidote… I designed the drug to be highly persistent… so it's nouse **_waiting_** for it to dissipate. Have fun with… uh…uh…" he seemed to try and remember their names, then gave up, "the dark one and the alien one! Oh…" and now something entirely different seemed to occur to him, "that reminds me… I was going to **_tell_** you something about the alien one… now **_what_** _was_ _it_?"

Robin's interest exploded as Joker got to something he could use, the mystery of Starfire's affliction seeming to thin at the merest suggestion of information from the nut torturing them all. The Joker kept him hanging, **_definitely_** on purpose, using the Starfire doll to wipe beads of sweat from his brow, obviously having exerted himself laughing his head off at the thought of Robin's suffering. Finally, he held up a finger in success, then pointed it at the doll in his other hand before continuing.

"**_Now_** I remember… it's about the drug's '**_affect'_** on the pretty little ET. You see, I couldn't get any accurate biochemical data for her, so I sort of… _just_ **_guessed_**! HeHehehehehe!" and Robin felt his blood chill in his veins, even through the pain of the beating he'd just taken, the thought of the Joker's inane genius just **_playing_** **_around_** with what he'd slipped Starfire terrifying the wits out of him. "So really—heheheh!" he could barely get his words out past the laughter, "Really—HeheHehaHahAaH—I don't know **_what_** it would do to her! HE—EHEHEEHE!" and he nearly fell over this time, unable to control his mirth, flinging the Starfire doll carelessly aside as he held his sides against the force of his cackling. "But—ehhehehehehe—who doesn't like **_surprises_**!" he screamed the last, then fell completely off camera as he lost himself in laughter, the sound continuing on and on, echoing inside Robin's skull unbearably until he cut the feed, dropping down to his knees, then sinking despondently the rest of the way into a boneless slump on the ground.

Robin was lost… lost in an ocean of confusion and despair, desperately flailing to keep his head above the surface as he was accosted from directions he never could have seen coming. The situation with Ravager had been simple, the kind of thing he'd dealt with innumerably in the past, the kind of thing he could **_handle_**. What was happing now… he **_couldn't_** handle. In fact, he imagined his own eyes must be taking on that same distant, desperate haze that clouded Raven's even now as she stood wavering slightly on her feet, waiting imprisoned behind her eyes for another command or question. A spear of anguish struck Robin at the inception of this thought, and his own despair was forgotten in sympathy for what she must be going through.

"Raven… are you alright?" he asked softly as he pried himself from the floor, nursing his bruised body with slow motions.

"I… I…" she couldn't seem to articulate words, tears bursting from her eyes as though his question had been the twist to a valve, granting her release she'd needed for some time. "I couldn't… stop myself… I had… no control…" she was mumbling disjointedly, and Robin immediately knew that her gaze would be distant with or without the drug, so traumatized had this loss of control left her. She was shell shocked within her unresponsive body, and as the leeway his question had granted waned, she fell to silence that chilled Robin to his core. He was scrambling for some way he could **_possibly_** comfort such intense suffering when the night's relentless assault took on a whole new, _utterly_, _totally_, _completely_, and **_inconceivably_** unexpected aspect.

"Robin?" Starfire asked, her voice heavy with some incredible drowsiness, and Robin's head snapped around with a jerking flash of motion, the sound of her voice striking him with a battery of piercing shock and bounding joy. She was leaning in the doorway of her hospital room, apparently barely able to stand, her eyes heavily lidded and an undeniable flush deepening the gold of her skin to a sparkling maroon. Despite her obvious exhaustion, she seemed to glow, and Robin's breath caught in his throat, an unfamiliar tingling sensation running along his spine at the mere sight of her.

"Robin… I feel strange… why is it so hot?" she begged exhaustedly, and he couldn't help but feel an intense pang of sympathy there too, the overpowering flush to her body seeming unbearably uncomfortable. Instantly he was torn, ripped in two equally compelling directions simultaneously, the towering needs of both women drawing him irresistibly, twisting his heart into an incredible knot as he stood in mute indecision.

While he hesitated, Raven finished blanking out, returning to the silent posture to await a command, and Starfire… Starfire began to **_strip_**. Ostensibly unable to bear the heat only she could feel, the young beauty peeled off sweat soaked gloves, her motions slow and precise, as though she were afraid she'd collapse if she over exerted herself, flinging the damp garments to the ground as soon as she removed them. Robin looked that way without seeming to comprehend, the portion of his mind still capable of **_functioning_** prioritizing what he needed to be doing on an entirely subconscious level, ending up in fierce competition from the other place a male could think from.

"Raven, you don't need to worry," Robin said sincerely, even as he stared directly at Starfire, who was currently peeling off her boots, revealing vast tracts of shiningly gorgeous flesh that didn't often see the light of day. "What happened was the work of Joker… it wasn't your fault… you couldn't have… have…" Robin's responsible side was quickly loosing the battle to his gonads as Starfire squeezed out of her metallic gray neckpiece, opening her shoulders and neck to the air and his eyes, leaving her in that purple top with the body coverage of a slightly skimpy sport bra. "Uhhh… what was I saying?"

"You were trying to comfort me…" Raven answered mechanically, then squeezed in, "Robin, _get a hold of yourself_!" She used the question to display how quickly she'd worked through her shock, most likely in response to Robin's obvious ignorance of what was really going on here. "Starfire—look at her eyes—she's not right in the head—you have to—" but her leeway ended and her warning was cut off… though not before alerting the Boy Wonder.

With Raven's desperate words, Robin was able to shake off the mesmerizing dance of glistening flesh for long enough to take another good look into Starfire's heavily lidded eyes, the eyes of a woman half asleep, even as she began to walk slowly towards him. Deep within the green pools, Robin spotted it, the thing Raven had so immediately noticed, a sparkling that had **_nothing_** to do with tears and **_everything_** to do with the chemicals altering her mind. By force of pure will, Robin drew a breath not wracked by trembles of desire and stood up to try and confront the mind-altered, mostly naked woman slowly closing in.

"Starfire… are you feeling okay?" he asked rather dumbly, the fact that he was able to resist the mind-numbing effects of the vision before him not accounting for the increasing difficulty that thinking presented as said vision gained the advantage of proximity.

"_Of course_ she's **_not_** okay you **_twit_**!" Raven leapt at the opportunity to speak, but choked on her next words since the question had not been addressed to her. She was still subject to the drug's stringent controls, even if she was finding new ways to bend them.

"As I said… I feel… **_hot_**," Starfire answered, her steady pace consuming the distance between them at a rate that was making Robin intensely uncomfortable. Her voice more and more was becoming something… **_deeper_** than merely drowsy… something like… **_luscious_**. Each syllable seemed packed with some warm, gooey promise, a sound that went straight from Robin's ears to a place somewhere in his lower stomach, jarring his heart into a flat-out sprint in the process. She closed to within arm's reach, and Robin gasped sharply for air, a saving backward step keeping her away as she finally came to a stop.

"This **_heat_**… Robin… won't you **_help_** me…?" she asked, her eyes widening to show the depth of her drugged insanity, a sultry smile crawling across her face as she unbuckled her skirt's belt and let the garment slide a titillating inch down her hips, drawing a gag of intense discomfort from the Boy Wonder, who froze in place, eyes focused unerringly on the curvaceous hip flesh that had been revealed.

"Abedeah… bubedaheh… debeduoeh…" Robin mumbled nonsense between frantic gasps as a rush of blood to southern areas left him without the necessary mental faculties to form coherent words.

"**_Back_**_ **off** Starfire_, he **_won't_** help you the way **_you_** want!" Raven stole another few words, all of which fell on ears in no state to register their existence. The shadowy woman was forced to watch then as drugged Starfire closed the last foot of space separating her from her heart's desire, staggering into an embrace that wrapped her arms under his and clamped them onto his back. With a squeeze that demonstrated quite visibly her fantastic strength, Starfire pulled herself forward until every inch of her body was pressed against Robin's, both her legs squeezing down on one of his as she pressed her steaming-hot cheek against his ghostly pale one. For his part, Robin quickly turned to jello, staggering backward with the woman still attached quite irremovably to his body, until he finally impacted with a wall.

"_What_—_What_—_What_—?" Robin's voice was shrill and hesitant, shocked into activation by that bonk on the head, his mind able to express its utter shock and confusion but not a whole hell of a lot else. Raven didn't have that problem, and with his blank check questions, was able to make it clear.

"ROBIN! Get a **_grip_** _damn_ _you_… Starfire isn't in her right mind! You can't… you _can't_ _do that_! Not in front of **_me_**!" and the last was said almost as a desperate plea, a hint of something less than outrage and much closer to a bastard hybrid of heartbreak and envy—a sound so fantastically out of the ordinary for her that it actually jarred Robin out of the hormone-induced mental pause he'd suffered. Under such a shock, the preponderance of his blood made a return trip to his brain, giving his heart another merciless jolt on the way, and he came to as though out of a dream or trance.

"St—Starfire, **_what_**_ are you **doing**_!" He asked in horror, looking down and seeing just what she was up to as though for the first time. She took the opportunity to undulate herself against him once, eliciting an exceptionally pained sigh from the young man, who had to bite down **_hard_** on his lower lip to keep from loosing all the ground he'd just gained to that one delicious sensation.

"Oh silly Robin…" she accused him in an almost playful, still incredibly lascivious tone, speaking directly into his hear without removing her face from being pressed seductively into his own, "I am quelling the heat of course." She made the statement as though it were the most natural thing in the world and not completely outside her character, giving Robin an insight into just how far gone her mind was right now. "When my skin touches your body…" she began again, her voice becoming a tingling whisper, "the heat becomes… something else… something **_nice_**…"

**_That_** was enough for Robin, and his breath caught in his throat as his mind hit critical meltdown, Starfire's unbelievable words bypassing his brain and striking directly for his libido. At the last instant before he totally lost himself to the radiantly warm lump of female flesh trying her best to press her body through his, he remembered that blank, sparkling look to her eyes, and that stark memory fueled his willpower in an epic rally. With a resounding crack, he knocked his head against the wall behind, using the pain to get a grip and hatch a plan in the same brief moment of clarity.

"Raven, can you get us to the shower—heeshh?" he managed to ask as Starfire increased her grip on him momentarily and pressed the air from his chest. It immediately occurred to his hazy mind that that had **_not_** came out correctly, and with a question in the air, Raven let him know **_exactly_** how **_she'd_** interpreted it.

"**_Pig_**!" she barked, her eyes tearing uncontrollably, "I'll not be party to whatever **_perversity_** you intend! **_How_** can you take **_advantage_** of her—how can you make me **_watch_**?" It was unclear which of these last two points more immediately wracked Raven's mind—the thought of Robin ravishing Starfire (or, more accurately, the other way around!) or the thought or being forced to watch, trapped behind her open eyes, as they consummated their relationship.

"That's not what I—_ohhooohhh_" Robin began to quibble, only to be cut off by an unintentional but exceptionally appreciable relocation of Starfire's knee. That was it, and he wasn't wasting anymore time—he couldn't hold out anymore. "Raven—take us _all_ to the shower **_right now_** _damnit_!"

Her body trembling incessantly as she fought in vain against the command, Raven summoned her soul self and pulled them all into a shadowy void, her freely streaming tears sparkling during the transition, and suddenly they were in the Tower's single shower and bathroom facility. Mercifully, they were immediately inside the spacious shower area, and it took only a quick and desperate blind grab by Robin to twist the cold water knob and set the essence of his plot into motion.

The three were instantly drenched in bone-chilling water at a high-pressure blast, spraying down from the extremely high faucet to wash the entire shower space, providing equal-opportunity drenching for each of them. Robin felt the blast hit his back and hair like a freezing breath of divine providence, the orifice-clenching chill wracking his body but simultaneously sweeping away the unbearable lust that had been making control of his own actions so problematic.

Any relief he may have felt was quickly eradicated by the hideous, squealing screech of unbearable proportions that Starfire let loose directly into his ear, with her simultaneously clamping down on his body with a force that threatened to crack his ribs and that **_definitely_** made breathing impossible. As she continued to be utterly drenched by the frosty blast, the cold reacted poorly with whatever effect the drug was having, and she passed out, falling backward away from him so fast that Robin could barely catch her dead weight, the two of them tumbling into Raven's legs where she stood immobile, her tears mixing with the water hitting her face, but her trembling slowing to a stop, even as the water pattered against her closed cloak.

"Raven, get the water," Robin choked out after the last wracking shiver passed through him, and he was gratified to feel the chilling deluge die away. Breathing heavily, he hefted Starfire's limp, mostly naked, completely soaking-wet body over his shoulder and stumbled gracelessly out of the shower.

A closet full of towels later, Starfire lay quietly sleeping on the bathroom floor, the white, fluffy drying tools making a bed and blanket for her. Robin had stripped down to his green armored tights, a damp towel over his shoulders that hardly concealed his bare chest while his cape, boots, body armor, and gloves all lay damp and forgotten on the tiles. Raven had been mostly spared by her cloak, but after a series of excruciatingly awkward questions and answers, Robin managed to get her out of the soaked draping and to the task of drying her hair with yet another of the crew's towels. With everyone situated, Robin asked Raven out of the bathroom, leaving behind the silent alien lest they wake her and reinitialize the drug's volatile effect.

"How are you doing Raven?" Robin asked, when the two of them were finally in the main living area again, his obvious desire to move past the unbelievably uncomfortable situation of moments ago readily apparent.

"I'm so sorry Robin…" the woman blurted right out the moment she had the chance, leaving the statement hanging for a moment before adding, "I didn't mean to accuse you—I honestly don't know why I—"

"Its no problem Raven, really," he assured her as he rubbed some warmth into the skin of his bare chest and arms, the clinging dampness chilling harshly in the air-conditioned living space. "That was a pretty intense situation, and I'll be the first to admit that in my weakness… I was dangerously close to doing something we **_all_** would have regretted eventually. I could have… I could have…" Robin obviously wasn't in the mood to picture what had nearly happened moments ago, so he merely said, "I'm not sure **_what_** I could have done, but I'm **_positive_** I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself or **_ever_** look Star in the eyes again. The only reason I came to my senses was because… because **_you_** were there to support me."

With that, Robin turned to fix a meaningful gaze on Raven's face, his heart still pierced by the painfully blank, hazy eyes that stared unflinchingly forward. As he looked now, however, an indescribable blush flushed its way across her pale features, and his brow furrowed in confusion as he noticed.

"What was the blush for?" he asked playfully, the quickly loosening tension compared to earlier driving all common sense completely from his mind. Even when she immediately set to an intense trembling to denote her resistance to the drug's compulsion, he merely became more confused, and it was a situation that would only worsen.

"I… **_Like_**… it… when… you… compliment… me…" Raven admitted through her every strenuous resistance to the chemical's grip on her brain, her blush coloring down to a spectacular crimson all over her face as her embarrassment combined with her incredible but futile efforts to keep quiet.

"**_What_**?" Robin choked out in shock, not as question so much as an exclamation, but it was still enough to squeeze another line of words from his reluctant friend.

"I… **_live_**… to… hear… your… praise…" and now she was really straining, her eyes tearing again as she railed against what she was about to admit, "I would do **_anything_**—"she blurted out at last, "—to make you proud!"

"But—But why would—ooop!" Robin had stammered out his stunned response to that incomprehensible information only to choke on it as it dawned on him that he was seriously violating her personal space here. It was too late now though, because he'd opened the final door to let the key fact that would ruin his life slip free from the veil of secrecy Raven had kept it safely behind for quite a while now.

"Because… because… I **_truly_**… **_completely_**… and have **_always_**…" she couldn't beat around the bush any longer, and the truth came spilling forth, "admired **_you_** Robin… I like you so much… I just want to feel—to feel that you like me back!"

There was a long moment of silence as those words percolated into Robin's brain. At first he tried to interpret them in any number of completely innocent ways, ways that wouldn't interfere with his life, ways that could be accepted and passed by without comment, but this was futile. In the context of its revelation and the despondent set to Raven's mechanically blank face, only one meaning could be derived from that admission, and as it finally and completely dawned on him, Robin felt the bottom come out from under his world.

In that one terrible moment, any fantasy he might have had about a simple relationship with Starfire went flying out the door, and any lover's dream of a quiet, uncomplicated future of his working up the guts to court the alien was dashed to pieces. The situation was suddenly so much more complicated, so much more startlingly full of pitfalls and hidden vipers than he had ever before envisioned, that it was all he could do to stagger backward onto the couch before his legs failed him. Under the strain, his mind began to flicker with unholy images, flashes of insight into the terrible pain Raven had been silently enduring as Robin had continually remained ignorant of her affections and thoughtlessly flirted with Starfire. With such a weight upon his mind, his crude expression of distress was only natural, as was his utter ignorance of the scene it would touch off.

"Oh _Fuck_ **_me_**," Robin muttered, his words meant for the cruel universe and its sick games, but instead reaching a woman who was helpless to resist anything expressed in the imperative case. There was a slight gasp, and that was the last thing the Boy Wonder noticed before his mind came to a complete standstill for **_quite_** an extended period.

With a noise that knocked all thought from Robin's mind, Raven's powers finally slipped the bounds of the infernal drug gripping her brain, a wave of unbridled emotion from her blowing out all the overhead lighting in a storm of resounding explosions. Even as his gaze flashed up to become fixed upon her, Robin saw her drop her towel from fingers that trembled epically, whether with resistance, terror, or a release of incredible pent-up excitement, it was impossible to know. As his utterly empty brain continued to fail brilliantly at comprehending what was happening, he saw her pull at the neck of her leotard until it had stretched out along an invisible seam in the back, then continued to lower it until the catch of the sleeves stopped her, leaving all of her shoulders and an abundance of pale cleavage exposed to the room's chill air.

Neurons short-circuiting magnificently in his brain, it was suddenly as though Robin was a third-person observer to this scene, unable to motivate his body to any useful action as shock more purely undiluted than any he'd ever experienced rode through him at will. In the eternally creeping seconds that followed, Robin was treated to an undeniably spectacular sight, all lit by naught but the silver bolts of moonlight striking through the suddenly dark room through the huge bay windows behind the television.

As he sat motionless, the unbelievable sight of the half-naked mystic stalking toward him through moonbeams that lit her pale skin with their ethereal light burned itself onto his brain. His body was shot through with electric current as he felt her hands reach down and grip his bare shoulders, the cool touch necessary for her balance as she crawled on top of him on the couch, keeling over him and looking down into his wide, uncomprehending, masked eyes with her own drug-hazed violet pools.

And then she kissed him.

The kiss was like a lick of candle fire, a curl of icy frost, and a tickling shock of electricity all at once, all pouring through the meager contact of lips, lighting a blaze in Robin's soul that had never before existed. As he tasted the warm, moist flavor of his mysterious friend's thin, delicate lips, the empty vessel of his mind drank in every instant of sensation, every iota of memory that could possibly be recorded to immortalize this, his first kiss of quiet passion. With innumerable tiny zinging sounds, black sparks that were the staples from the carpet around the couch began pelting from the floor to the ceiling in an expanding circle of clicking impactsfrom the pylon of invisible energy at the epicenter of the kiss. When every metal pip had been firmly inversed into the roof, the paint began to peel from the plaster around them as twisting black streaks began to etch through the space above the intimate pair, white flakes beginning to rain down on them like artificial snow, the energized air kicking them into an unreal swirling.

Lips still locked in delicate contact with Raven's, Robin opened eyes he didn't remember closing, straining to look up into hers. What he saw would chill him to the core. When the terrible reality of the dread tears pouring relentlessly from Raven's vacant eyes finally transmitted through the gauze of intense pleasure numbing his mind, Robin was able to think again… and his first thought was **_shame_**. As he reached up in a panic to grip her bare shoulders and pull her away, Robin's heart was crushed by such reaching and bounding remorse that he was incapable of voicing it, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. When he felt her pressing back at him, resisting his escape from her embrace, from her eager lips, he found the words he should have uttered long ago, far too late now to prevent the grievous violation that had transpired.

"Stopstopstopstopstopstop," Robin chanted quickly, granting her release from his idiotically careless command, even as he rolled the woman forcefully off of him and stood up and away, leaving her on the couch still half-stripped, her stretched-open leotard revealing great tracts of pale back as she crumpled on her side with the last bits of motion allowed to her. Though he could not see her face, he could _feel_ her weeping, the waves of her sadness spoken as clearly by her miserable shaking as she lie silently on the couch. His heart breaking, Robin did not manage any words for some time, but finally gathered the courage to attempt some.

"Raven… I'm **_so_** **_sorry_**…" he mumbled pathetically, knowing well the worlds of insufficiency that phrase presented in the face of what he'd just done, "how can I—?" but she cut him off suddenly, scrabbling at the open question before he could limit her dialogue options with a more specific one.

"You were _never_ supposed to **_know_**!" she moaned, speaking past a sob of distress, and Robin was stabbed simultaneously by the force of her misery and the shocking lack of anger over what had just happened, standing back as leaping bolts of black energy began to coil and lick off of her skin as she worked through her fit, "I _never_—I _never_ said **_anything_**… because I couldn't **_do_** _that_ to Star… I couldn't **_hurt_** her like that! She's my **_best_** **_friend_**… and I've been in love with the same man as her for _so **long** now_, _so_ **_very_** **_long_**… its been **_tarring_** at me… **_ripping_** **_me_** **_apart_**…" The final word there provoked a crack of emotion-borne lightning that licked out and blew the screen out of the television, Robin barely able to dodge the flying glass with his mind so thoroughly wrung out.

"Raven… _oh my **god**_—I…" Robin was reduced to a tongue-tied fool in the face of such overpowering feeling from the normally stoic woman.

"I… I've violated her trust…" Raven gasped with the last of her leeway, the drug clamping down on her voice anew, "drugged or no… I… enjoyed **_every_** **_second_**… oh **_Starfire_**…" her voice failed her, and Robin's whole being failed him.

Never before in his life had Robin felt his tongue so numb. He was so far out of his depth that he'd need a bathysphere to get out, and that was leaving him decidedly **_beyond_** a loss for words. In the end, he probably would have had ample opportunity to stumble incoherently for a way to express his inexpressible sympathy… had not fate chosen that moment to **_bean_** him with a merciless **_knuckle_**-**_ball_**.

"Does someone address **_me_**?" came a lilting, sultry female voice from the entrance to the hallway, and Robin's mind did a ridiculous flip-flop as he was forced to switch from stunned and confused to shocked and terrified by the very **_obvious_** fact that Starfire was up and around again.

She had recovered from unconsciousness faster than anyone could have predicted, and now as she entered the living room, Robin felt his guts turn to jelly once more at the undiluted vision of beauty she represented. As his hormones flared, he noticed everything about her there was to notice. Her hair, still damp, ran wild and scraggly in a great red mass that shone dully in the soft moonlight. Her eyes, still sparkling with the drug's effects, were half-closed in a portrait of desire, framed as they were by the deep flush that had returned to her skin. Her **_skin_**, every **_glorious_** **_inch_** of it that was shining free to the chilled air, _literally **steamed**_ as the internal heat radiating from her body reacted with her damp skin and the air-conditioning to evaporate the water in visible gouts. And **_still_**, her whole form, clothed or not, seemed to emanate some indescribable sheen that was not light, but that none the less could only be described as a glow.

As his heart began to pound like a White Stripes baseline, Robin began to slowly back away from Raven and the couch, gingerly backtracking over the abundance of broken glass carpeting the lowered TV viewing area in an effort to put some buffer space between himself and the beauty that was eyeing his bare chest like a great predatory cat sizing up a side of beef. He got up and away from the TV area well enough, but still Starfire stalked ever toward him, and before he knew it he'd backed right into the kitchen counter, his shoulder banging sharply into Beast Boy's stereo.

"Ah!" he let forth a gasp of surprise, and then felt compelled to make it more as he was transfixed by those sparkling green eyes consuming his body so shamelessly, "Ah… Starfire… its good to see you up again!" and the nervous pleasantry sounded quite as fake as it was, not that the woman seemed to notice.

"I must ask Robin…" she drawled as she stalked ever closer, "why our shared bathing experience was executed in **_cold_** water?" there was a dangerous edge to her voice now, a deep hunger expressed in a way that was frightening on a purely instinctual level. His voice failed him, but the question gave another's voice leeway.

"It was to stop **_you_** Starfire!" Raven shouted from the couch, "—you're **_not_** yourself, you **_need_** to get a **_grip_**, you **_need_** to **_resist_** the drug!" she scrambled to beg of her friend as the window of opportunity for speech closed again.

For the record, Starfire seemed genuinely shaken for a moment, her eyes blinking rapidly as she cringed, pausing in her pursuit of Robin to look over at where Raven was still lying immobilized. Alas, one good look at how her leotard was still indecently pulled open, and the drug's grip was fully reconfirmed.

"Oh **_pooh_**!" Starfire muttered, apparently to Raven, even as she fixed that undeniably predatory stare on Robin again, "You just want him to yourself!" That the statement was so close to the truth did not withstand the fact that the **_way_** Starfire meant it was **_completely_** wrong, it was just a painful irony. "I believe I know what I **_desire_**…" she continued, her voice very clearly directed at Robin now, "and this time I'll **_not_** be **_distracted_**."

"Oh—what do you mean?" Robin asked insipidly, mind racing frantically to do just that, "there are **_plenty_** of things we could do Star! Uh… for example…" and now that she was only a few feet away, thought once again became unbearably difficult, "we could…" and the stinging in his elbow granted him a line of inspiration at last, "listen to music!" Robin took the idea for all it was worth, using it to fuel his leap over the kitchenette counter as he slammed his fist into the boom box the way he saw Beast Boy do on a regular basis.

Instantly the dark, moonlit room was filled with the sultry tones of an expertly played saxophone, a slow base and piano number backing its seductive notes.

"Welcome to our all-night smooth jazz marathon," spoke a deep, rumbling DJ's voice, "music to cuddle with your honey to—"

"NOT THIS!" Robin shouted nervously, watching the way Starfire continued to close relentlessly in that unbearably slow stride of hers. He smacked the machine again and there was a buzz of static as it tuned, then came to rest on a new station.

"—My _Milkshake_ (pause)—brings all the **_boys_** to the yard—"

"OR THIS!" he nearly whimpered this time, his salvation becoming inextricably linked in his own mind to finding some acceptable music, no matter how little sense that actually made. He gave the thing another swat, and this time a rousing hip-hop/operatic beat started to thump through the room, and he could almost have cried in relief. Then he heard the lyrics.

"I'll _take_ you to the _candy_ _store_—and _let_ you lick the _lollipop_."

"AHHH!" he sort of moaned and screamed at the same time, smashing the stereo mercilessly as Starfire got to nearly arm's reach, its tuner spinning randomly and landing on one last station. There was a bouncing 70's soul beat, and Robin didn't need to pretend to be hopeful this time, he recognized Marvin Gaye when he heard it.

"I've been _really_ _trying_ _baby_— " came the legend's crooning voice, "trying to hold back this feeling for _sooo_ _long_—and if you _feelll_—like I _feell_ baby—then come on—OH—come on—WHOOH—**_Let's_** get it on!" and the cruel irony of the moment was punctuated by the fist Starfire used to obliterate the stereo, all resistance running fully out of Robin as her hungry smile filled his entire world. In the end, he barely yelped at all when she grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him bodily over the kitchenette table.

In an instant they were both on the plush carpeting, Starfire wrapping herself around Robin's body in a way that made him want to cry and melt at the same time, her hands taking up position on his wrists as she pinned him down—not that he had any desire to be anywhere else in the universe at that particular moment.

"Ohhhhh…" Starfire moaned contentedly into Robin's ear as she pressed her bare flesh against his rock hard abs and entwined her legs around his, "such a **_delightful_** way… to _quench_ the **_heat_**…" and Robin couldn't help but agree completely. Without the protection of his armor between him and her, any thought of resisting whatever she may have wanted to do was drowned in an ocean of delight, the intense heat of her body seeming to flow directly into him. As her hands tightened their grip on his wrists unconsciously, his arms were drawn above his head, and her hold on him only increased as she took it directly to the next level.

"You **_know_** Robin…" she managed to articulate into his ear as they ground together ever so slowly, never quite still but hardly moving at all, "there is one Earth custom… I have wished to try… for a **_very_** _long_ _time_…" Of course, Robin's hormone-high mind took that statement and did all kinds of beautiful things with it, but that was all quite independent of the obvious need of Starfire's to do something with her lips, which had been what she was actually talking about. Thus, in an ecstatically slow motion that sent a lot more than butterflies through Robin's stomach, Starfire dragged her lips along his throat and up his chin until she could press them into his mouth.

Quite obviously—she kissed him.

Instantly Robin could honestly have sworn that he'd just been forced to bite down on a live wire, so intense was the explosion of sensation that wracked his body. Where the kiss with Raven had been a quiet delight of elemental feelings spread out gently over moment after moment of electrified pressure, this kiss was something else **_entirely_**. It was a raging river of lava, a bone-chilling blizzard to bite the soul, and a rock-smiting lightning strike all rolled together in a whirlwind of lips and tentatively questing tongue. She tasted raw, primal, her breath still carrying hints of mustard and those rancid purple berries she was always eating, and the overall experience was such that he did not have to **_try_** and remember it, because it was permanently scored onto the inside of his skull—this, his first kiss of _undiluted_ **_lust_**.

After a surreal eternity of riotous pleasure, the kiss was at last broken by the goddess holding him helpless on the ground, and her mouth crept its way slowly back to his ear as they both struggled to catch their breath with shivering gasps that forced their skin together in sensual meetings of hard, sweaty muscles. Even once she could form words again, she did not immediately speak, Robin hardly begrudging her the respite as his mind was way too far up in outer space for anything she might have said to register. At last though, words split the relative silence once more.

"That was **_definitely_**… worth the wait…" Starfire mumbled into Robin's ear, and he made an agreeable sound as he delighted in the heat still pouring out of her—and now meeting his own heat as her affections baked his being in undeniable pleasure. "But… I must ask…" and now, as she glanced quizzically down between their bodies, of **_all_** things, her naïve, trusting voice replaced her lusty one, "why do you poke at me like that?"

As those words dumped a figurative bucket of ice water down his spine, Robin spontaneously began the complicated process of simultaneously choking on his tongue as it slid down his throat and his heart as it leapt up his throat, completely unable to even **_begin_** to articulate a feasible method of answering that insanely unexpected question. Considering how heavily she'd been coming on, nowhere in his mind had any expectation of such a complication even made the **_slightest_** impression, and the way he struck that brick wall of fundamental knowledge requirements so suddenly did much to snap him out of the hypnosis she'd drawn him under.

"He **_pokes_** you because you **_stroke_** him!" it was Raven's voice that answered, unbelievably crude, blunt, and containing a harsh edge as the first question in ages let loose her combination of frustration and disgust at the situation. She'd been planted and forgotten on the couch, blessedly unable to **_see_** what was going on but still trapped in her unresponsive shell, fully able to hear the debauchery occurring not ten feet away. It had left her… **_short_**.

"Raven?" Robin asked, clearly having forgotten that she was there. He suddenly began to struggle against Starfire's grip, endeavoring in vain to release himself from the divine embrace clamping down on him, a definite need to regain control of the situation blossoming now that the spell of the moment had been broken by Starfire's embarrassing question.

"Don't mind me," she responded sourly, "I'm just lying paralyzed, half-naked on the couch." It was clear that her old standby emotional walls of biting sarcasm and enduring gloominess had come fully into play as Robin's infatuation played itself out within her earshot, and Robin couldn't help but get a full measure of the agony hidden behind that snide quip. That was the final dose of reinforcement he needed, that unbearable knowledge that his actions were breaking the heart of a woman he'd vowed to always protect, and he began to squirm against Starfire's ironclad hold in earnest.

"What is bothering you Robin?" Starfire asked distantly, glaring down at him with those sparkling eyes, eyes that were not the ones the young man had fallen in love with, her overwhelming strength keeping him pinned without any real effort on her part. "Why do you squirm? Do you require more stroking?" she continued to voice blank confusion at his wordless efforts to escape, completely failing to comprehend what she was talking about, speaking from a station of actually pure innocence tempered by drug-induced lust.

"**_Starfire_**, _let me **up**_!" Robin demanded, a hint of panic entering his voice as he realized just how helpless he was underneath the golden-skinned amazon, "this—this is all wrong! We **_shouldn't_** be **_doing_** this, not because of some drug controlling your mind!"

"Do not be silly Robin!" Starfire demanded cheerfully, tightening her grip on his wrists until it was genuinely painful, still using only a fraction of her intense power, "why would either of us **_ever_** want to break this embrace?" As she said the last, her voice was overcome with the drugged side of her mind once more, slipping down into a well of undirected carnality she could express only through luscious—but essentially innocent—physical contact. This time, she rubbed herself bodily up and down Robin, and it would be a bald-faced lie to say he didn't enjoy it enormously, but his terror was definitely bringing a whole new, completely messed-up aspect to the pleasure.

"Because you're **_hurting_**_ him_ Starifre!" Raven answered the alien's question, then stabbed out with, "let me **_help_** Robin!" before the drug clamped down on her voice again. Starfire didn't seem to notice that there was anyone else in the universe other than Robin, ignoring Raven utterly, but Robin's rising fear caused him to lash out for the offered aid without hesitation.

"Raven, help me out with this!" he commanded, and still it didn't seem as though Starfire even noticed, the radiant alien using her flight power to press her lover boy even more forcefully to the carpet beneath her sweaty, slowly gyrating body. The situation was quickly going further than Robin could handle, everything getting completely out of hand as Starfire continued to relentlessly increase the force of her obedience to the drug's singular drive. As she increased her force, Robin grew new bruises, and became ever more unwillingly aroused, the mind-capturing hypnosis of her beauty failing as it became ever more clear that base lust and not unbridled compassion was the driving power behind those sparkling green eyes. At last however, he had the heavy-hitting help he needed to extricate himself from the hot, sticky, sweaty situation.

At his bellowed demand for aid, Raven pulled herself up on the couch, peering over its back to examine the lewd scene playing itself out in the middle of their living room. Robin felt a flush of relief as her power seeped into his hands, enveloping them in a black aura that was chill against the sweaty flesh. Expecting any number of quick escapes, the jerking migration his hands suddenly fought against Starfire's crippling strength still managed to catch him completely off guard. Now, before he knew it, he'd been forced to drag his hands, and by proxy, Starfire's own iron grip, behind the beauty's back and down, down, down, to attach them firmly to her ample, spectacular rear.

"Eeeep—" Starfire was finally caught off guard, her blush somehow managing to deepen as she felt the effect of a lover's touch in the general vicinity of that sensitive area for the first time ever, her eyes widening reflexively as her body stiffened in shock, her grip, pulled behind her back with Robin's, tightening to dangerously painful levels.

"**_Raven_**! That is **_NOT_** what I **_meant_**!" Robin exclaimed in horror, communicating volumes of betrayal and mortification.

"You have to be **_specific_** damnit!" She shouted in response, her own disgust blowing away any indignity he might have expressed, "_If you_ **_remember_**, **_I'm_** _not_ _in control of_ _my_ **_powers_** _over here_!"

"Ohhhh Robin…" Starfire suddenly recovered from her shock, her mind absorbing the new level of sensation through the lens of that depraved toxin ruling her perceptions, "that was a **_naughty_** thing to do…" and now, as her hands slid up his arms and fastened around his biceps with their terrible grip, she grew a smile that had absolutely no place on the face of such an innocent girl. "I **_liked_** it…" she sighed, and Robin could have expired on the spot. His heart, already abused in both its literal role as blood regulation device and its figurative role as emotional center of the body, just couldn't take a whole lot more of this.

"Raven, go to the medical floor," Robin began, his voice more even and strong than it had been since this whole fiasco had gotten started, "get the number four tranquilizer and come back up here—as **_fast_** as you **_possibly_** **_can_**," he committed the plan to words that Raven wouldn't be able to misinterpret, and she was gone in an instant. At this point, Robin knew that any attempt to interrupt Starfire with anything short of a full take-down would provoke a fight that he couldn't be sure they'd win, not without someone (most likely himself) becoming seriously injured. That left Robin alone with the terrifying bundle of physical power and undirected sexuality currently wrapped wholly around him as Raven went for their only alternative.

Almost as a response to the words he'd been calmly dictating only moments past, which she'd basically ignored as not being about her or the sensations she was exclusively interested in at the moment, Starfire moved things into the redzone. Robin had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out as her grip began to crush his biceps, its unintentional tightening spreading a growing agony through him, with the promise of so much more should the titan above him think to use greater than the gentlest fraction of her power. With the tightening came Starfire's move, as she pressed her upper body away from his chest, removing them from their intensely hot, flush, body-to-body positioning for the first time since she'd tackled him. In a moment, she straddled him in a much more traditional positioning, and now the young man was freezing up in a whole new way as Starfire's eyes narrowed in confusion and muddled contemplation.

"Robin… I have… I… have a question…" she managed to articulate her confusion, finally coming to the conclusion that **_he_** might know what now troubled her. Robin instantly began to pray with a fevered urgency that it **_not_** be the question he thought it was going to be. "There is… an **_itch_** Robin," and the young man's prayers were dashed as he felt himself literally dying of embarrassment and horror at what was happening to him. "It is… **_unfamiliar_**… but… perhaps… you might know…?" and that hesitant question, accompanied as it was by a look of pristinely agonized confusion coupled with irresistibly driving lust, was the final straw for Robin.

"**_Starfire_**—**_NO_**!" he said what he should have said from the start, once more much too late to prevent great harm from occurring. "I'm **_not_** going to let you **_do_** this! This _isn't_ **_you_**, this _isn't_ **_right_**, and I _won't_ have _any part of it **anymore**_! **_Let me go_**!" His resolve was set in steel now, all pleasure having left the situation as he realized just **_how badly_** his beautiful friend's heart was being twisted and perverted. With a deepening sense of personal disgust and horror, it occurred to him that the real Starfire might even be trapped behind those sparkling stranger's eyes, watching him cave to her addictive beauty in his unforgivably weak way. With this, his struggling became frantic, his every muscle straining in vain to engineer an escape, all of his considerable wrestling skill searching for some gap in the woman's ironclad grip.

"And just _how do you plan to **stop** me_?" Starfire asked, and Robin froze on the spot, the towers of vicious pleasure expressed in that simple, utterly dangerous statement pressing an ice-cold flush through his overworked body. The woman's face just as suddenly twisted into a cruel mask, an expression that mutated her quite unexpectedly into the very image of her evil older sister. It was a change that made Robin's muscles turn to water, so immediately terrified did he become, and Starfire took the opportunity to its fullest.

"**_You_** have **_no hope_** of resisting **_me_**!" she hissed down at him as she grappled fully around his body again, releasing her grip on his shoulders to reveal terrible bruises, her efforts becoming something else entirely as Robin's resistance reflexively cut back and they entered a rather one-sided wrestling match, a heated rubbing of sweat soaked muscles devoid of pleasure, all to the tune of Robin's strenuous, panicked grunts and Starfire's easy hum as she continued to have her way with him. Finally, she had him completely pinned, one of her hands holding both of his wrists to his lower back, leaving her other hand to roam his body as she pressed him face-first into the floor, straddling his legs to keep him utterly still. "I can do… **_whatever_** I want… because **_I_** have the **_strength_**…"

"_Who_—_who_ **_are_** _you_?" Robin asked, his voice trembling, his mind officially blown as the woman at his back finished the process of completely emasculating him. He'd had no real hope against her, not once… **_ever_**… and as she exercised complete control over him, he felt something inside himself crumbling away. On the verge of tears, he shuddered as she lowered herself down over his back, warming him once more with the heat of her body.

"I… am **_in love with you_**… Robin…" she whispered, her tone a sickening mockery of that belonging to the woman he himself had fallen in love with, and the torture was more or less complete right then and there. His heart disintegrating, Robin clenched his eyes shut as tears finally found their way out, a broken prayer for salvation from this nightmare repeating endlessly in his mind.

A sudden shadow fell across the moonlight, and Robin's eyes snapped open again as his last ray of hope arrived, his prayer actually answered for once. Motivated mostly by fear and his skin-crawlingly severe need to escape Starfire's unbearable touch, Robin shouted, "_Stick her **damnit**! **Take** **her** **down**_!"

Starfire ignored his shout, but Raven could not, and in a moment there was the sound of the auto-hypo firing forcefully into the lust-crazed woman's bloodstream, and instantly her grip was broken. She collapsed limply on top of Robin, her hot sweatiness pressing a final time into his chilled, clammy, terror-paled flesh. In a scrambling moment, he'd crawled out from under her and was out and away across the room, expressing his urgent desire for space without ever bothering to stand. In fact, it was as he sat back, gasping for air and trying in utter vain to understand what had transpired here tonight, that wicked infinity chose to play its final gambit of the night.

Starfire stood up.

"That feels… that feels **_funny_**…" she commented idly, and then emitted a girlish giggle to prove it as she staggered on incredibly uncertain balance. Robin instantly set to cowering, his mind already snapped by his first experience with sexual assault, but it was not him Starfire's double-drugged brain came to focus on.

"Robin… is that **_you_**?" she asked, a goofy warbling to her tone as she spotted Raven standing motionless right next to her.

"**_NO_**! **_I'm_** _not_ _Robin_—_I'm_ **_Not_**—_what are you **doing**_?" Raven wailed piteously as Starfire staggered two steps forward and threw all her weight into the same luscious embrace that had once enveloped Robin, hanging her quickly failing limbs around the other woman's slight body.

A strange thing happened then, by **_any_** reckoning, a **_very_** strange thing. Robin's mind, already too far gone to describe, didn't even hiccup a solitary drop of surprise as it occurred, instead automatically recording every detail of its happening without error. So it was that he had a perfect view as Starfire, stripped to the bare minimum of top and hardly-hanging-on mini-skirt, flushed crimson by the dance of drugs through her veins and brain, squeezed onto Raven, whose wide-open stretched leotard still barely managed to cover enough to preserve the illusion of modesty.

"I… want a kiss…" Starfire muttered...

"Yes…" Raven was forced to respond…

"WWWAAAAAHHHHH?" Speedy screamed out this time, stopping dead in his tracks as his jaw nearly dislocated in its effort to open anywhere near wide enough to express his surprise. "NO! I—I—NO!" he quite adamantly refused to believe what he'd just heard.

"Do you think I can make this stuff up?" Robin asked him miserably, his face set into a mask of utter seriousness as he stopped as well, not bothering to turn around. Speedy stalked forward to force him to turn around, and the discussion was joined in earnest.

"It's not a question of whether or not I think you made it up, it's the question of—_you're so damn full of **shit**_!" Speedy called him a liar, plain and simple, and Robin only wished it could be true.

"Listen man, I was **_there_**, I saw it with my **_own_** **_eyes_**," Robin reminded him forcefully, "and **_I_** didn't even believe it! I actually had to go back to the security tape before I could be sure it wasn't a delusion of a cracked mind."

"Uhh—so it **_did_** happen?" Speedy asked in awe, growing a lewd smile all of a sudden, "and there's a **_tape_**?"

"A tape I've already destroyed," Robin said flatly, and Speedy just gave him a dirty look.

"**_Bull_**!" he exclaimed, "I don't care if your honor-code has a code of honor, no self-respecting straight male, possessing sound mind and body, would **_ever_** destroy such a **_brilliant_** work of **_art_** as that tape must surely have captured!" Speedy shouted dramatically, calling Robin's bluff flat out. He stared the broken man down, and eventually, with a roll of his eyes, Robin conceded the point. Much to his shame, he hadn't been able to bring himself to destroy **_every_** tape.

"Great… so I'm gonna get a copy right?" Speedy asked, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"**_Fat chance,"_** and this was in a tone Speedy knew not to argue with. Not that he intended to let it stop him, but hey?

"Alright, **_alright_**," Speedy conceded the point, for the moment anyway, "so at least describe it to me. **_Please_** tell me it wasn't one of those 'hello grandma' kisses!"

"No, actually, they were **_seriously_** sucking face," Robin muttered unhappily, disgusted with himself for relating all this but far too dependant on the way getting it all out of his system was helping his mood. "they were beginning to turn blue before it ended."

"**_Bless_** **_you_**!" Speedy thanked him expansively, then went on with, "Was there… **_tongue_**?" he barely even dared to question, lest his fantasies be sundered.

"More than **_I_** got that night," Robin confirmed sadly, "like they were trying to exchange tonsils."

"YES!" and Speedy punched the air in victory, his eyes tearing in joy, "the mental image alone just made my **_decade_**!"

"**_It would_**…" Robin sniped, making no impression at all on his friend's ecstasy. "Now are you going to keep blathering about that or can we move on here?"

"I'd **_rather_** keep blathering about that—" and Speedy got a good look at the dangerous glare Robin cast him, then reconsidered, "—by which I mean: _please_, continue." He waited for a moment, then added, "I just never pegged Star and Rae for swinging both ways…" a comment that earned him a stinging smack up the side of his head.

"_They were **drugged** out of their_ **_minds_**!" Robin shouted, "now are you going to let me finish this **_or what_**?" and it was clear what the answer would have to be for Speedy to survive the experience. Speedy thus nodded without delay, cowed.

"**_Okay_**," and Robin picked up again, "So that went on for a while, until finally Star passed out the rest of the way, crumpled onto the floor, and left Raven standing there in full grip of Joker's sick drug. Now, at that moment, I was in no particular state of mind for discussing things—hell, I couldn't have told you which way was **_up_** right about then," and Speedy gave him a mock envious pantomime act as to the 'shapely' reasons for **_why_** he was so disoriented then, an act that was met by a withering glare, "so I basically chickened out."

"I ordered Raven to tranq herself too, then high-tailed it to the showers again. After about an hour-long soak, I managed to force the shaking to stop, and I finally had enough nerve to go back out there, _fully clothed this time_, to take care of things. I was kind of in a daze then, like walking in a dream, but I managed to wrap them both up in extra blankets and get them into the med-bay stasis pods. The computer said the antidote will be done sometime tomorrow afternoon… and I just couldn't bear to stick around in that building all by myself anymore. So I high-tailed it, gave your useless ass a call, and have been trying to come up with some kind of plan ever since. I **_gotta_** have things straight when I wake those two up, because I'm only going to have a few hours to come to terms before Cy and B.B. get home, and I'd rather have something **_at least_** as solid as a mutual understanding of what went down **_before_** that. The rest we can work out over time."

"Okay—hold up—I have a few questions now," Speedy started to get serious at last, and Robin could have hugged him he was so relieved. "Like—first of all, how did you go from being shell-shocked and brain-blasted to being puppy-dog-eyed and quasi-Shakespearian with the hopeless romantic act?"

"_It **took** a while_," was all Robin said at first.

"I can **_imagine_**…" Speedy agreed, "but seriously, what the hell man?" Speedy wheeled at him, and through mostly an expressive series of mask-contorting eyebrow gestures and grimaces, he managed to get Robin to open up.

"If I had to guess…" Robin had some trouble starting, rather unwilling to admit to himself what was wrong, but finally letting it out, "I'd say it's kind of a delayed-shock action combined with the protective denial I've been cultivating. It took me **_hours_** of wandering aimlessly through the streets before I could think about Starfire without guilt or Raven without shame. Eventually, I managed to peg all that misery squarely on Joker's completely insane shoulders, but that's still left me with **_a lot_** more than I've ever had to deal with before. For the first time in my entire life… I **_know_** I'm in love… and I **_know_** that I'm loved. What I don't **_know_** is what the **_hell_** I'm supposed to do to keep from hurting one, or both, of those **_women_** Speedy."

"Come on, what you should do is **_obvious_**," Speedy said, almost out of hand, "I figured this out ages ago man, I can't believe **_you_** didn't."

"Oh I'll bet—come on Speedy, you name any course of action you want and I'll tell you **_exactly_** why it **_won't_** work!" Robin snapped quietly, completely wrapped in the utter certainty of his misery.

"I'll tell ya alright," and Speedy grew such an enormous smile that Robin instantly knew he was going to hate the idea. "_Just pick **Starfire**_."

"**_Brilliant_**!" Robin shouted sarcastically, "why didn't I settle on that **_ages_** ago? Oh wait—is it because doing that would **_rip_** Raven's heart in two and set the pieces on **_fire_** before **_grounding_** them into the **_ash_** and **_urinating_** on the **_scorch_** **_mark_**! Or is it because _I'm_ _in_ **_Love_** _with_ _her_ **_TOO_**!"

"**_Damn_** man—**_chill_**!" Speedy didn't take the theatrics well, even as he understood the point his friend was making. None the less, he was so certain of his joke's effectiveness that he ignored every warning sign and went through with it. "I've got **_three_** great reasons—"

"Well hell, lay them on me," Robin demanded, fully ready to shoot them down.

"First—" and Speedy grinned in self-assured arrogance as he wound up his discourse, "you admitted that you've been crushing on her for ages, while the thing with Raven is brand spankin' new. That gives Starfire prior claim."

"Speedy… I just found out that I've been torturing Raven for months with my complete inability to notice her affections," Robin objected, more sincere than vicious now that he noticed Speedy wasn't being an ass about this. "She may have been hiding them to maintain her friendship with Star, but none the less, her feelings are at least as old, and I just can't **_reject_** something like that!" Speedy nodded slowly, his grin frumping out as Robin came in with full gloom-power.

"Second—" Speedy wasn't about to give up, especially not before the punch line, "Raven admitted that she was fully ready to give you up to Starfire, that she'd **_wanted_** to hide the way she felt so you wouldn't be hung up about passing her by. What you're doing right now is **_exactly_** what she **_didn't_** want to happen, so why don't you just respect her wishes?"

"Damnit." Robin stated simply, that second comment hitting a little harder than the first. "I believe I mentioned something about the way I'm… I don't know… _in **love** with her **too**_? I know **_why_** she was hiding it—it's because she knew I was **_weak_**, and that if it came down to it, I'd react like **_this_**… falling for both like some half-witted knuckle-head. I know…" Robin went on, even more somberly, "I **_know_** Raven was **_willing_** to give up what she felt for Star's sake… but she's **_always_** been generous to the point of self-sacrifice…" and Robin was really tanking now, his whole body slumping with the ache pulsing through his body, "and I've never let her sacrifice her life or happiness for me or any of the others **_before_**—so why should I start **_now_**? Raven and Starfire have equal right to live happy, whether that means dating me or **_whatever_**. Just because she's **_willing_** to suffer doesn't make the decision to **_allow_** her to any less **_heartbreaking_**.. "

"_My** god**_!" Speedy moaned, that speech hitting him right in the guts, unsettling his ice cream, "I **_swear_** you could depress a friggen **_hyena_** man!" With this new reminder of just how serious Robin was about all this, Speedy lost his nerve on the whole joke issue. Robin was, unfortunately, a very good listener.

"So what's point three?" he asked dourly, staring out along the abandoned midnight streets.

"I don't think you want—"

"**_Tell me_** **_point three,"_** and it wasn't a request.

"We-heh-ell," Speedy drew out the sound as he cringed into a smile of a sort, "Raven, no matter what's in her ancestry, is definitely human. Starfire is an alien."

"And?" Robin asked, casting Speedy a sidelong glare, "I've already made it clear that none of that bothers me in the slightest."

"Yeah," and Speedy was sweating now, "but… when you aren't the same species as someone, and you happen to become 'affectionate'… then, of course, there's absolutely **_zero_** chance of unplanned pregnancy-EEEE!" the last came as Robin swatted him with a hard-knuckled punch to the side of the head that threw him to the ground in a heap.

"Eh-heh-heh," Speedy tried to laugh through the ache in his jaw, picking himself back up again, "I kinda figured you'd answer like that."

"_I'm **not** fucking kidding here Speedy_!" Robin snapped, "this **_isn't_** some kind of joke, so why the hell don't you get your mind out of the damn **_gutter_** and give me some useful information! I mean, don't you ever think about anything other than sex?"

"Oh, and what about **_you_**?" Speedy shot back at him by way of an answer, "Why **_don't_** you ever think about sex? It **_is_** great you know!"

"Life isn't all about getting **_laid_**!" Robin yelled back, and now both of them were staring nose to nose in a shouting match, gritting teeth and furrowing brows.

"Maybe not—" and Speedy was the first to give ground here, unable to face Robin's intensity, fueled as it was by his instability, "and maybe my philosophy isn't going to win me any popularity awards with guys like you. But at least I don't have **_your_** problem—" and he didn't give Robin a word in edgewise before saying, "it **_isn't_** **_possible_** for you to please **_everyone_** all the time Robin! Sometimes you can't **_help_** but break a heart, sometimes you **_can't_** save **_everyone_** you love from suffering!"

The air between them fell to silence after that stinging comeback, Robin's stare weakening steadily, then faltering as he turned to look back the way they were heading, setting back into that sturdy pace of his as he slumped in defeat.

"**_Just watch me_**," he said, and Speedy sighed in exasperation, catching up quickly. "I have…" Robin checked his chronometer, "twelve hours to figure something out before I wake them, and all the time they're willing to give me to work it out after that."

"And in the meantime, you're about a **_million_** **_years_** overdue for a stiff drink!" Speedy chimed in, letting the words finish clearing the air between them. He was there to help, after all, and right now nothing would help Robin more than a few hours of ethanol numbing his confusion and pain.

"**_Amen_**," Robin agreed, and that was the last to pass between them for a while. It was not all there was to say, however, and eventually Robin worked up the nerve to speak the last thing weighing on his mind.

"Speedy?" Robin asked, and the hollow tone wiped any thought of joking from the red-head's mind as he entered serious mode.

"Yeah?"

"Can—can you listen to just one more thing?"

"Sure…"

"I was… I was also a fan of the 'pick Starfire' plan for a while… these past few hours… until I stopped lying to myself…"

"Uh… about what?"

Rather than answer, Robin rolled up the sleeve of his armor on Speedy's side, then rolled down his glove below that. Immediately revealed were nauseating, eye-wateringly hideous bruises, all worked out in greens and purples beyond accurate description, the deepest, most disgusting portions showing the clear outlines of petite hands. Speedy hissed and winced away from the sight, a life of combat experience telling him exactly what kind of unbelievable pain those things must be throbbing with even now. He'd heard Robin describe Starfire's grip, but the bruises on Robin's wrists and biceps were truly disgusting, more so than he could ever have imagined.

"I stopped lying to myself… about how I got **_these_**…" and there was the biting edge of borderline psychosis in Robin's tone as he covered the injuries again. Speedy knew for a fact that Robin had received worse than that **_by far_** in his lifetime of civic service, but he'd never seen the other guy so broken up about **_anything_**, and he was forced to assume it was the nature of the bruises' circumstances more than their existence that made Robin so… frightened? Embarrassed? Speedy couldn't tell, but it was **_bad_**.

"Oh man... I can't… I don't…" this was **_way_** outside of Speedy's experience, just **_out_** and **_beyond_** anything he'd ever talked to anyone about. Victims of sexual assault weren't generally his crowd.

"Body to body, no weapons, Starfire is **_so_**_ **much** **stronger** _than me," Robin said, his voice frighteningly shallow, "She could grind **_every_** **_bone_** in me to dust without even **_trying_**… and I wouldn't even stand a **_chance_** of resisting. In my **_mind_** I know what happened back there wasn't **_her_**, **_wasn't_** the Star I fell for… and that the… **_thing_**… the **_thing_** that **_happened_**… will **_never_** happen again… but my **_heart_**! In my **_heart_**… I can **_still_** feel her eyes… her eyes on me like I was her next **_meal_**. I'm… I'm **_certain_** that if she'd had even the **_slightest_** inkling of what actual intercourse was… I wouldn't be a virgin right now. Speedy… I… I'm… **_afraid_**…"

The other man had no answer, and so he just took the statement as it was made, not even Robin's admission of his own virginity managing to trigger the slightest thought of taunt or tease in his treacherous brain. If **_that_** doesn't tell you how affected the young man was, nothing will.

"You need liquor." Speedy finally said.

"**_Amen_**," Robin answered yet again.

* * *

WHOOOOO HEEEEE!

Now THAT was a long chapter! I mean, do you have any concept of what it takes to produce writing of that quality in such large portions in a single week? A quickly developing case of carpel tunnel for one thing… and we're not even **_mentioning_** the hassle editing the damn thing can be… but enough complaining from me, a chapter like that deserves footnotes!

Ravager—was a character lifted from the New Teen Titans comic books as a generic seeming assassin. If you've ever read those or know this guy's actual story, rest assured that I was using him as nothing but a convenient plot device, and he has none of the original back-story. I suppose I could have cut this story's length in half by having Joker fed-ex Robin the drug in some goofy looking dolls, but I figured that would be a little cliché. Besides, this way I could draw a contrast between pre-revelation Robin's utter confidence and strength and the confused, belligerent, whiny mess that was introduced first chapter. Besides still, writing that scene was a blast, Robin never kicking enough ass on the show or in most other fics I've seen.

Joker—Please, for the love of all things good an holy, when you picture this guy, don't think of that sad… sad excuse for a joker they started running on 'The Batman.' The only animated Joker worthy of that nutcase's sick legacy is the ultra-crazy homicidal maniac from 'Batman—the animated series.' I'd figure my descriptions would tell you that's who I was talking about, but I just had to make this immutably clear.

Fluff—You know, I was more than a little nervous, as I've never really attempted something of this particular nature before. Looking back, it's not bad. (if you disagree, please say so, if you agree, ditto!) I know I may have freaked a few of my younger or more prudish readers out, but you have to admit, whether or not fluff is your thing, this stuff came out pretty damn compelling.

Future—My mind has been wrung out by the effort of producing this, but even still, the next thing on my writing itinerary is my sequel to Twisted Hearts: Tough Love, a romance/angst of suitably dark faire I'm going to call Twisted Hearts: Purgatory in Deep Blue. Check out my bio for a guide to other upcoming works. For the next chapter of this, I see our dynamic duo hitting the party hard, and the conversation therein is going to be epic. It'll be me venting my frustrations with American sociology through the lens of Robin's particular problems, and simultaneously working the comedy factor mercilessly with Speedy's farcical promiscuity.


	3. Liquor, Promiscuity, Nice!

To my readers, be ye loyal or new.

I would like to take this opportunity to hold a moment of silence for the tragic bombing deaths in London on the day of this Chapter's initial posting, Thursday July 7, 2005. My condolences go out to the families of those who died in this despicable act of terrorism, for which, at this moment, the media has yet to find a snappy name for. As a resident of the D.C.—metro area (N. Virginia specifically), I was very close to one of the 9/11 attacks (my father works in the Pentagon, though thankfully not the destroyed section) and suffered through the reign of terror perpetrated by the D.C. Sniper (most of the random murders from which happened within an hour's drive of my house or less), and so I have nothing but empathy for those affected by this heinous act of violence. I pray for the survivors, that they may have a speedy recovery. God Save the Queen.

DISCLAIMER:

This story is **_not_** for those of an age (determined not arbitrarily by law and censors, but rather, by each individual's life experiences) such that their accumulation of years does not amount to the necessary maturity to understand and enjoy thoughts of sex, drugs, and other fun things like that. I've know people in their 30's too young, as well as 10 year-olds already old enough. The second case is kind of sad, but none the less, that should be the criterion of entry here.

That said, the author of this story understands that in this world there is something called high-risk behavior. This amounts to engaging in such activities as promiscuous sex, drug use, and drinking alcohol in any of its forms. It is this author's **_personal_** **_opinion_** that any of these things, when done intelligently, can be enjoyable, if never exactly safe (especially when dealing with highly addictive drugs, which are **_never_** really safe). However, it is also known to this author that none of these things are legal for minors, and few of them for anyone else, and so he is obligated to grant the following message.

The only truly safe sex is none at all—called abstinence. The only way to prevent the negative side effects of getting high—**_also_** abstinence. The only sure-fire way to avoid getting drunk—you guessed it—abstinence here too. In our current reality, there are no handheld bio-scanners that detect STD's, just as there are no super-medicines that cure being drunk, so if you screw, you run the risk of catching something nasty, and if you drink, you're gonna get drunk, and it's gonna last till your liver (which you aren't doing a favor with that liquor) is done cleaning it out. It is not my intention to promote promiscuity or drug abuse with this story, merely to use the shock value of these things to entertain.

—And now… fun with **_naughty_** things—

With this chapter, I wanted to back away from romance for a little while and examine the relationship between these two awesome guys a little closer. For the purposes of this story, the history between them in the comic books is only slightly less defunct than the rather non-existent one in the show, so don't refer to either when you read this—it's all original. The intent, and hopefully you'll see it too, was to show an old, powerful bond of true fraternity, and how Speedy uses it to clear away Robin's rampant confusion and doubt over the course of a rather typical guy's night out—with the exception that the guys are super heroes and celebrities.

I do not feel the need to get drunk. Thus my descriptions of such things are based on my observances of an alcoholic older brother and an army of rowdy college buddies. I may not have first hand experience, but my second-hand is plentiful (not that I won't accept any criticism one might offer.)

**_Enough_**! Story time.

* * *

Third Chapter: Liquor… Promiscuity… **_Nice_**! 

"Hey, did you hear that?" Speedy asked Robin, his voice a harsh whisper to just barely break the oppressive silence of the nighttime streets. The part of Jump closest to the docks wasn't the ritziest, and the broken street lights and utterly abandoned sidewalks strewn with garbage left the bright moon as the only illumination, and the large rats the only witnesses. It was not the kind of place to be off one's guard, even if one was a superhero, and this is why Speedy held up his friend at the first unexpected sound.

"Hear what?" Robin asked, still more dejected than anything else, walking rather forlornly two steps behind his friend on their way to the pier. "I didn't hear anything."

"**_Eeeeepp_**—" a slightly louder sound, a muffled cry to be sure, split the quiet that ruled the darkened streets. This time Robin perked up, and no more words had to be exchanged between the two as the Boy Wonder's eyes narrowed, his combat reflexes remaining true despite his extensive emotional trials of the past days. If anything, the promise of action seemed to lift a great burden from his shoulders, and as the adrenaline began to rush and he allowed a birdarang to fall into his palm, he wondered why in the world he hadn't thought to pick a fight from the first moment of his depression.

In any case, Speedy had his bow out in a motion Robin's eye never caught, and after a series of hand signals, they had a plan fully developed and in action. Robin, moving like a silent shadow through moonlight and darkness, danced up the walls of the building the sound had come from, silent as a breath of wind. Speedy kept to the streets, clinging to corners and melding with the dark, the slightest electric hum announcing that the night-vision lenses in his mask had activated. The two converged on a lonesome alleyway between two old warehouses, and that was where they discovered the source of the muffled wailing, the sound growing ever louder and more distinct as they crept closer, a number of figures barely visible as outlines in the dark.

"Quit struggling girly!" a harsh, clipped command, barely audible in the reaching pitch-black of the alleyway, was directed from a tall, skinny, standing figure to a second shape kneeling in the back of the alley, boxed in by all the others.

"Yeah… this'll only get **_bloody_** if you don't **_cooperate_**!" a second voice, deeper and stupider than the first, rumbled out a harsh warning, even as the sound of an intense scuffle filled the vacant darkness, the man's huge frame concealing a smaller, violently struggling form wrapped up in his titanic arms.

"Hey **_stupid_**," a third voice, chill and lean, addressed the second, coming from a nondescript outline leaning against one of the alley's dirty brick walls, "don't make any promises you can't keep. If I get my way, this'll get bloody **_reeeaaallll_** fast."

"**_Oh_** yeah—" the first voice, twisted with disgusting lust, chimed in again, "and if the shrimpy one is as fresh as she **_looks_**—" he paused for a reason that could not be determined in the dark, probably to everyone's benefit, "this might get bloody by '**_mechanical_** **_necessity_**!'"

"**_NO_**!" a female voice now, shrill and breathless as though after great exertion, came from the kneeling shape, "you **_promised_**! You said—you said that if I came with you quietly you—you **_wouldn't_**!" She was obviously distraught, the trembling brink of tears quavering in her tone, a sound sliced short by a ringing smack of fist impacting with flesh. She grunted in shock, laid out fully on the ground by the punch, then coughed past the pain into a slow series of wracking sobs where she lay.

"**_Shut up bitch_**!" it was the weasel-like first voice, apparently the source of the blow that silenced her. "We'll do whatever we damn well please, and if you don't like it, the knives come out—get me?"

"Don't worry," the scary, cold voice said again, in a tone that would cause any sane person to contradict his command, "Bruno here is the only one who really gets off on the puny, skin-and-bones type, and I'm sure he'll leave her alone… if you ask **_nice_**-like."

"Heh-heh-heh," the stupid sounding man laughed slowly, the diminutive shape in his overpowering grip still jerking around uselessly, though it's muffled squealing had come to stop the moment the woman had been beaten to the ground. "It'll have to be the nicest '**_request'_** of all time—better get down on your knees… if ya know whut I mean…" and one could hear the way his disgusting leer, hidden by the darkness, distorted his voice.

"Oh-**_okay_**—" and the girl on the ground seemed to cave as the three men closed in, surrounding her a few steps back on three sides with the back of the alley behind her, choking off any possible route of escape, "I'll do… whatever you **_want_**… just—**_please_**!" and she broke down into freely flowing tears right here, "**_let_** my little sister **_go_**!"

"Nahh nahh!" the skinny, vicious man exclaimed, as he crouched next to her and reached out a hand, a tiny switchblade flipping open despite any promise he might have made to the contrary, "the squirt doesn't leave till we're sure you give us **_everything_** you've got to give, sweet cheeks!"

"Besides," and it was the scary man again, his voice still that eternally frightening, perfectly even tone, "Bruno likes to hold on to the little ones… didn't I tell you that? I'm not sure if we'll be able to get him to let go, even once we're **_done_** with you, **_much_** **_less_** in the meantime. I'd say your best bet…" and his voice tensed with sadistic amusement, "is to make sure you '_**tire** **him** **out**_**'**… or I don't know if you'll be seeing your pretty little sister **_ever_** **_again_**."

With this statement, the girl in the man's arms went into a whole new series of muffled screams and useless struggling at the same time that the woman on the ground gasped, her whole body stiffening as she realized, perhaps for the first time, that there was no way for her to get herself or her helpless sibling out of this mess. As the three men towered over her, the biggest one still gripping her sister with both arms, her frozen shock transformed into unbroken panic.

"**_Help_**!—**_Somebody_**!" she screamed, far too little, far too late, and the skinny man darted forward to tackle her and press his knife down against her throat.

"Bad move girly!" he spoke directly into her face as he pressed the point of his knife against her cheek with one hand and choked off her air with the other. "This is the Box-Town… nothing 'round here but empty warehouses… squatters that wouldn't save their own **_mammas_**… and the rest of **_our_** gang. Scream all ya want, it wont—"

There was a loud clattering sound from down the alley, like something metal had just been kicked and allowed to bounce around, and all three men turned on their heels with a simultaneous jerk, gazing out into the choking black like startled wolves, a variety of knives and guns coming out in a flash of practiced ease. There was naught but the sound of the metal object coming to a slow, loud, gradual rest as it spun on its side, and that was more than enough to spook the crooks.

"Nick, put your cock away and strap up," commanded the scary one, who brandished a dirty .45 as he backed up against a wall. "Go check that out."

"Aww, **_damnit_**, why do **_I_** gotta go?" the skinny man whined without getting off the woman. The other two turned to look at him with nasty expressions shrouded by the dark, but the power of their combined disgust could be felt as a physical force though the air. It was enough to make an observer reevaluate who the stupid one was.

"**_Damnit_** Nick!" screamed the scary one, "you stupid **_fuck_**! You've got the **_only_** god damn **_flashlight_**! I mean **_Jesus_** **_Christ_**, you gotta cut back on the **_crack_** man!"

"**_Hey_**, it don't **_affect_** me!" he shouted back defensively, then turned back to the woman he was still strangling easily with his off hand. "Alright toots, you lucked out with this rat or whatever, but don't you even think about making a break for it."

"Yeah… I still got yer purdy little sister all ready and waiting," reminded the big one, rather redundantly, hefting the younger woman easily, her body having gone limp in defeat after so long struggling fruitlessly.

"And if you **_should_** happen to get up, I'd be forced to **_ventilate_** you," said the scary one again, adding his threat for kicks, the woman obviously too terrified to even make a sound, "and we'd just have to have our fun with what was left over. Now Nick, get off your lazy ass and check that out. The triads have been sniffing around our turf, and we can't be taking chances like in the old days."

"This is stupid!" Nick made his opinion known without reservation as he reluctantly got off the woman and pulled his modified machine pistol off his back and the flashlight off his hip, "even if there was someone there, he'd be a stupid fuck to still be there **_now_**!"

"If you **_don't_** get your ass **_over_** there… I'll shoot **_you_**," the scary one, clearly in charge, made a threat, and as the flashlight came on with a click that split the quiet alley the same way the intense beam of light split the darkness, it was clear that Nick didn't take it lightly.

"Okay Don, **_Okay_**, I'm **_goin_**!" he whined again, and got his ass immediately into gear. There was no reasoning with Don, and the last thing he needed was his boss putting a cap in his skull for insubordination. Better to humor his paranoid delusions and get on with the night's fun.

That in mind, Nick was down toward the alley's mouth in moments, checking around some ancient dumpsters that hadn't been emptied since he was in high school beating up nerds for lunch money his whore of a mother couldn't provide. Ignoring the stench as an ever-present part of his everyday life, he gave the area a half-hearted once-over, trying to make it look good for Don. Actually, when he did find something, no one was more surprised than he himself.

"Oh **_shit_**!" he shouted in surprise, as he bent over to check the object that was shining under his light, "hey Don, take a look at this! I don't fricken **_believe_** it!" The object was metallic, done in a red, vaguely avian motif that the gangster recognized instantly—it was on enough contraband merchandise to be immediately identifiable to anyone with eyes. The razor-sharp Birdarang sat embedded in the side of the dumpster, where it had stopped after ricocheting off of the brick alley walls any number of times.

"**_Don_**?" he asked again, half annoyed and half confused when there was no answer, and he turned to shine his light back down the alley. "Bruno, what happened to Don?" The other man, who'd been standing closer to Nick than to Don and their cowering victim, apparently lost in lewd contemplation of the helpless kid in his arms, looked up at the sound of his name without comprehending.

"What? I dunno, he was behind me a second ago," and with those famous last words, both turned as Nick's flashlight blasted a harsh beam of illumination back toward the end of the alley. The circle lingered for a moment on the cowering woman, then traced right to where Don had last been standing.

Emptiness.

"Ohhhh no…" Nick moaned, his voice trembling, his hand beginning to shake violently, causing the beam to dance erratically along the back of the alley. "ohhhh **_no_**…."

"What? What's the **_matter_** man?" Bruno asked cluelessly, "Where's Don?"

"I—I—I—" stammered Nick, his mind going blank with undirected terror, the image of that disgustingly sharp birdarang filling his mind's eye to the exclusion of all else. He was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, and as he began to backpedal slowly, gradual working up the nerve to bolt for his life, Bruno remained clueless.

"Hey, Nick, hold the light higher, I think I see something up the wall…" the big guy asked, ignorant of what made his friend quake with terror. The light remained where it was for a moment, and then there was a strange sound from behind him, and the light fell clattering to the ground, its beam leaving the wall and flickering randomly until it rolled to a stop.

"Nick, you **_dipshit_**, why'd you drop it?" Bruno asked angrily as he turned around again, looking back up the alley.

Emptiness.

By the bare illumination of the light where it cast its harsh glow onto a bare patch of bricks, Bruno could see that he was suddenly alone in the alley besides the woman on the ground and the girl in his arms. His pulse chose that moment to quite reasonably begin to thunder out of control, his breaths coming fast and short as he looked around reflexively for his two buddies. He desperately wanted to believe that Nick had just made a break for it, that Don had found some sneaky way of ditching the two of them. But even if such a pleasant lie could be true, even if there had been some way for Nick to get out of the alley before he'd turned around, even if there were some place for Don to duck out in the utterly blank brick walls, it would **_still_** mean that Bruno was somewhere he **_should_** be far away from, and that left him cold, unable to obtain peace of mind, even from denial.

"Nick…? Don…? **_Come_** **_on_** guys…" and the big guy was speaking in a quavering tone, desperately hoping that this was all a joke, his grip reflexively tightening on the woman he held like a rag doll. Though he was huge, possibly upward of 300 lbs, just shy of seven feet tall, built like a hunk of granite with arms, he still shivered like a frightened child, the unbroken quiet of alleyway reaching in from all sides to choke at him.

"Your friends **_can't_** hear you, **_Benjamin_** **_Hoopers_**," a mysterious, terrifyingly cold voice spoke, seeming to come from all directions at once, addressing him with the name his mother had given him, ratcheting his panic to a whole new level. The instant he heard it, he whimpered, backing up until he cowered against the very back wall of the alley, holding the girl more like a safety blanket than a victim-to-be. His eyes, widened unbelievably by the icy fear crushing his chest, desperately searched the shadows, the glare of the discarded flashlight doing more to hinder his sight than to aid it as it stabbed his eyes.

"Who's **_there_**?" he asked, terror numbing his already deficient IQ, letting no more than the tiniest whisper escape his lips with the way it mercilessly compressed his lungs, "who—_who_ **_are_** _you_?"

"Who am**_ I_**?" the voice asked, still with no discernable source as it rained down and echoed unbearably over the sheer bricks. There was a violent hissing sound as something buzzed through the air toward him, and Bruno felt his knees turn to jelly just before his whole body jerked in a terrible jolt, the clang of metal against stone piercing his ear. He slowly turned his head to look there, and what he saw made his eyes water as a blood rush to his head nearly stole consciousness from him. A birdarang, its dull sheen telling the tale of its intensely sharp edge, jutted from the wall the merest inch from his ear.

"Oh **_SHIT_**!" Bruno screamed, his terror finally breaking out into full, unrestrained panic as he dumped the girl to the ground and took to his heels, motivating his enormous girth down toward the alley's entrance as fast as he could. A sudden glowing in the shadows put his panic on pause, and he nearly fell on his ass trying to stop before he hit it. His face ticking freakishly with the enormity of his fear, he backed away from the glow slowly, desperately resisting the urge to screech like a little girl. The glow brightened suddenly, and he could just make out a masked face behind a drawn bow and the glowing-tipped arrow knocked and drawn upon it.

The face was grinning wildly.

"EEEEHHHEEEEE!" Bruno screamed, the squeal more akin to what one heard from a teenage girl at a horror flick than from a titan of a man hardened by years on the street. The next instant, the arrow released, and Bruno had just enough time for a **_pop_** sound to register as the missile transformed before an enormous boxing mitt crashed into his face and flipped him over backward, the bright yellow fist hard as a hunk of steel despite the layer of leather over it. After sailing through a full flip, he planted face-first into the pavement, his body following a moment later with a resounding thud. He knew no more.

The bowman, whose second shot had already been knocked and drawn, let off his bow when he saw that the gigantic man had a glass jaw. He stepped forward a few paces, looked down at his target, then spat in disgust. After a moment, he was joined by a second silent shadow, dropping down from the rooftops. The two figures glanced at one another for a moment, and there was a poignant moment of tension between them, almost tangible in its overarching presence.

They then simultaneously burst out laughing.

"OHHH-HO-HO my GOD-hahahahah!" Speedy shouted in utter, fantastic delight, slapping his knee as he keeled over, unable to stand his own mirth.

"That was **_exactly_** what I needed!" Robin shouted back at him, as he gasped for breath between resounding strings of laughter, the two filling the alley with a sound that hadn't graced this part of town in ages.

"Did you see that skinny chump with the tats wet himself after you snatched the first guy?" Speedy asked as he finally curbed his laughs and began to suck down great gasps of air, straightening slowly and slinging his bow away.

"Oh yeah, and the big one—_ohhh_ **_damn_**!" Robin exclaimed with glee, his troubles forgotten in the moment of perfect triumph, shared as it was with someone who understood the game just as he did, "—when I ran his mugshot and called him by his full name—you'd think the big bastard was gonna start **_crying_**!"

"The pedophile _piece_ of **_shit_** deserved more than what he **_got_**," Speedy's expression soured, though he didn't quite loose his smile, "too bad he's such a pansy or maybe he would have lasted a full volley."

"Oh don't sweat it," Robin admonished the marksman, holding out a clenched hand, for which his friend offered the traditional double tap with his own gloved fist. "I haven't had that much fun since I left Gotham. With all the super-powered nuts and psychopathic assassins running around this hole, you could almost forget what a blast it is to terrorize the 'superstitious, cowardly lot.'"

"**_Amen_**!" Speedy agreed readily, as the two of them walked the rest of the way into the alley, stepping over the big guy's huge, utterly limp body as they began the cleanup. "What ever **_happened_** to good old-fashioned muggings?" the red-head found himself asking the next moment, "I mean, for example," he started a good-natured rant as he pulled a brace of arrows out of his quiver and passed Robin a few, "when was the last time someone without super-powers tired to rob a bank around here? Huh?"

"I can't remember a **_single_** instance," Robin admitted, casting back through his memory as he and Speedy planted the arrows into the bricks of the opposing walls, allowing the lamps mounted in the arrow shafts to light the area with full-daylight brightness. "Gotham had a few real fruitcakes with issues that landed them in Arkham, but this city—it draws freak-jobs with crazy powers like some kind of cosmic **_weirdness_**-**_magnet_**! I sure as hell didn't know this was what I was getting into when I ditched the old man to make it on my own!"

"**_Seriously_**!" Speedy agreed, as he looked up into the area above them that had used to be solid shadows.

Up there, now clearly visible, there were two men hanging on lines, completely unconscious, their mouths gagged as the bundling cord kept them safely aloft. The first one had been the scary man, and his moderately nice suit and the nasty scar on his pale face spoke of success in his chosen profession. The other guy was also pale, but his spiky red mohawk and the plethora of tacky tattoos covering his flesh as exposed by the rather queer leather outfit he wore more than made up for his lack of skin tone.

"Now, if you don't mind," Speedy continued, a hint of something odd in his voice, "I believe its time we checked on the **_ladies_**!"

"You go ahead," Robin suddenly lost some of his humor at the mention of females in general, "I'll tie up chuck-o the child-molester here," and he was referring to the enormous black man Speedy had taken down with a single shot.

"Oh man, you **_never_** **_could_** handle the attention!" Speedy teased, even as he walked over to the two women lying quite motionless at the end of the alley.

"I was never doing it for the **_attention_**," Robin said, voice ice-cool by now as the thrill of the fight left him. These guys had been chumps, and as fun as it was to mess with chumps, as great as it felt to protect the innocent, Robin still longed for an actual challenge. He needed something serious, something he could throw all his energy into—that was the only way he'd kept things strictly business in the past, and that was the only path he could see for getting his mind off the hotties after his hide and general affections right now.

"Yeah, yeah," Speedy felt Robin's dour sentiments getting him down too, despite his desires to the otherwise, "You were one of those 'personal vendetta' cases. I remember **_that_** talk." As depressing as Robin could be at times like this, Speedy stuck around, and as obnoxious as Speedy could be at any given moment, Robin stuck around. They **_had_** had a talk, quite some time ago now, and they **_did_** have a connection since then, quite undeniably.

In any case, Speedy was over the two women the next moment, and he had to admit, he generally appreciated what he saw. The younger sister was knocked out from the rough handling, but otherwise seemed okay. She really **_was_** young, not conceivably older than fifteen, and probably closer to thirteen by the fresh face and not-quite-there-yet curves just getting started in earnest all up and down her body. Indeed she was young, but there was something about the picture there Speedy didn't quite like, namely that she had sandy blond hair down to just past her ears dyed with pink highlights, more paint on her face than the average side of a house, and she was wearing a purple and pink striped tube top and purple hot pants that showed off more skin than was legal by any stretch of the imagination. The whole picture, in fact, screamed '**_jail bait_**,' the bane of week-willed older single guys across the country. Anyway, she was obviously dressed to go somewhere, but Speedy didn't think the kid's **_mother_** knew.

Once he was sure she was breathing and had a pulse, Speedy moved on to the older sister, a young woman a great deal more interesting to him than the kid had been. This lady was probably somewhere around sixteen or seventeen, but by the way she was dressed, she could have passed for twenty-one in a heartbeat. She had the same sandy blond hair as her sister, its length falling in expert braids just past her shoulders, framing a face that looked to have been done up by a professional makeup artist, despite the trailing smudges her tears had left. She was currently wearing an extremely hot halter-top done in blue and black swirling patterns that perfectly complimented a black skirt with full hose and garter accoutrement, all the way down to her impressively tall high-heels. She was laying quite still, though Speedy didn't think her unconscious, and as he approached and got a good look at her, he had to shake his head in amazement.

"**_Helloooo_** **_Nurse_**!" Speedy muttered under his breath, then louder, "Are you alright lady? That was a pretty close call there."

"Ahh!" she choked down a scream before bolting up and edging away along the ground until her back was pressed to the end of the alley. "Who—who are you!" She screamed, newly terrified of the masked miscreant before her, even though she could finally see that her previous attackers were quite gone.

"Ah nuts," Speedy was watching his tongue without realizing it now that he had a reason to, "I just don't have the same rep on this coast… ah well. I know you don't recognize me miss, but perhaps you know my bondage-happy friend back there?" and Speedy cleared away slightly to let the woman's panicked gaze travel down the alley to where Robin had just finished hauling the last guy's huge ass up into the air on a third line, hanging him next to his two buddies.

"Ohh…" the woman moaned, the tension running out of her body in a visible stream, her body seeming to crumple in on itself in pure relief, "Robin…? So… I'm… saved?" She seemed almost confused at first, apparently not having seen a rescue coming at all, especially not from such an esteemed community figure. It wasn't every day you saw one of the Teen Titans in Box-Town—**_hell_**, it wasn't every day you saw a Teen Titan **_period_**.

"Quite **_right_** you're saved!" Speedy was quick to close back in and offer his hand to young woman, her unfocused eyes sliding from Robin to him and apparently recognizing the similar theme in clothing. "My famous compatriot and I were on our way to…" he thought better of advertising their destination suddenly, the tabloids were not kind after all, "well, we were on our way there when we couldn't help but notice your predicament. Being concerned citizens and all—"

"OH **_thank_** **_you_**!" she screamed, cutting off his pointless rambling as she leapt up from her prone position to give him an enormous hug. Wrapped up by extremely grateful babe, the young woman crying freely into his shoulder, Speedy grew a contented smile.

"Ahh the small perks," he said very quietly, then pulled the lady off by degrees, helping her to stand straight considering the continuing tremble in her legs. "Don't worry," he said loud enough for her to hear, "you and your sister are going to be fine. Now, if you don't mind, it's better if we get out of here sooner rather than later."

"What?" the girl was completely ready to leave, to be sure, but she was still more than dazed enough by her sudden change in circumstances to question anything and everything.

"It's pretty simple really," and it was Robin this time, speaking from where he was hefting the younger sister onto his back, "we don't have any jurisdiction over common thugs like these, not like we do with the showy super-freaks the cops genuinely can't handle. Now, the police will tend to turn a blind eye, but we're not the Justice League over here, and beating on crooks is **_still_** vigilante justice, which is **_still_** a crime. No one takes it **_that_** seriously, but there are some cops who have it sore for us since we started throwing our weight around in the super-powered crime department, and they wouldn't exactly be enthusiastic about our doing their job for them in the mundane crime department too."

"O-oh-okay," The girl managed to get out eventually, still a little awed by the supreme star power of Robin and… his cute friend escorting her out of the alley. Then she saw the rather limp nature of her little sister, and she managed to panic all over again. "_Oh_ _no_—**_Jess_**!" she shouted, her voice piercing the unreal quiet of Box-Town, "is—is she **_alright_**?"

"She's fine!" Speedy assured her, even as he hurried to hush her up and got her moving again by wrapping his arm around one of hers and pressing her forward, "But _we_ **_won't_** _be_ if we're still around when the rest of their gang shows up!"

"Trash like that never travels in such small numbers for long," Robin said coolly, using one hand to yank the light arrows out of the walls as Speedy finished gently but firmly muscling the older sister into motion. "My guess is that you just missed out on being the main course for something like twenty guys—that trio was probably getting first dibs before the rest of them showed up."

"T-t-t-t-**_twenty_**?" she said in horror, as her quickening pace caused her to stumble on her tall pumps, "oh my **_GOD_**!" and it was clear that she was freezing up again at the mere thought of what had almost been.

"Yeah, well, normally we'd stick around for the party—give the trash a warm welcome and all," Speedy assured her, trying to cover his exasperation as she lost all the movement he'd instilled into her, "but we can't do that **_and_** keep you two safe, so **_seriously_**—move **_now_**, freak **_later_**!"

"I—I can't run in **_these_**!" she exclaimed in a panic, tripping over her heels again as Speedy's pulling overbalanced her.

"You heard the woman!" Robin said, breaking into an even sprint that was impressively fast despite the awkward burden on his back.

"That I **_did_**!" Speedy responded quite enthusiastically as he caught the woman out of her spill and lifted her bodily into his arms, eliciting quite the squeal of surprise. In a heartbeat he was out and after Robin, his own measured dash running down and matching the other guy's in no time. They left behind three unconscious scumbags hanging from high-tensile wires, and not a single further trace of material evidence that they'd ever been there.

Behind them, some twenty seconds after they'd gotten clear of the alley, a small group of shady characters wandered nonchalantly into the same blind path that had been the scene of that one-sided conflict. They walked in, saw no one where they should have seen the night's entertainment getting started, then spotted the discarded flashlight, and it wasn't too long at all before they found their three friends hanging quite senseless above their heads. Expansive cussing was committed, people were cut down, and the word went out to muster for a rumble to take place before the night was out. They'd know who they were up against as soon as the three victims came to, not that it took much of a guess to realize the kind of opponent that beat you senseless then hung you up as an example.

* * *

"So… thanks again," the young woman said, quite completely in earnest, when the two men had finally put no less than five city blocks between them and the scene of that attack. The two guys in question were currently taking a much-needed breather, sweat pouring out of them profusely as they leaned against an abandoned warehouse and each other, the woman holding up her discarded sister while they rested. 

"It's no problem, defending the innocent is _what_ _we_ **_do_**," Speedy managed to say with a jaunty smile, despite the distance he'd just covered in a flat-out run. She smiled back, the compassionate expression readily visible by the light of the working street lamps they'd finally reached, indicating their escape from the shadows of Box-Town. Robin watched them make eyes at one another for a while, then got fed up and decided to break the mood before it got **_him_** to thinking about things he'd rather **_not_**.

"**_SO_**!" the Boy Wonder broke in rudely, "Miss…?"

"Alicia," the girl answered, when she recognized the question, blushing deeply when she realized she'd never introduced herself to the super-star.

"Alicia," Robin repeated, seeming to consider it, then went on, "You seem to know **_me_**, but this is my good friend and fellow Teen Titan, Speedy. He usually operates out east, but he's in the neighborhood for the time being. Which brings me to the question… why were **_you_** in **_this_** neighborhood? **_Particularly_** why in the middle of the night?"

"Ohh… **_well_**…" she clamed-up suddenly, obvious not comfortable talking about what she'd been doing in a terrible, crime-rife area in the pitch black of night while dressed to kill and accompanied by a younger sister dressed to get some old pervert thrown in jail. Speedy immediately turned to toss Robin a distinctly dirty look for interrogating a woman that could well still be traumatized. Robin shrugged the other guy's disapproval off easily, tossing back a glare of **_disgust_** at the way he'd been **_flirting_** with a woman who could well still be traumatized. The two glared at each other as the silence deepened, then Alicia caved and started to talk.

"It was my **_boyfriend_**," she admitted, her voice gaining a serious tinge of shame as she started to relate her tale, "we were on our way… someplace…" she was obviously no more eager than Speedy to discuss her intended destination, "and we had an argument about… something…" her specifics were **_inspiring_**, and Robin rolled his eyes at the whole situation, "and he—he **_dumped_** me—_out_ **_here_**!"

"So he just… **_ditched_** you… **_and_** your sister… **_after_** **_dark_**… in the **_worst_** part of the city?" Robin asked slowly, more than slightly disgusted. The air between him and Speedy was cleared by their shared disdain for this bum-ass boyfriend, and as they finished recovering their breath and began to stretch out, Speedy became spokesman for their shared thoughts.

"Sounds like you were dating some real **_scum_**," he said coolly, more sympathetically than accusatorily, and Alicia granted him a new, brilliant smile at the unexpected emotional support. "It's nothing to worry about really, happens to every pretty girl at least once in her life. The trick is to live, learn, and not put out for just any jack-hole that lays the pressure on."

"T-thanks…" she said uncertainly, blushing deeply again as Speedy referred to her as pretty, then blushing **_frantically_** as she realized **_what_** **_else_** he'd said, and that he'd known **_instantly_** what the argument in the car had been about. As she watched, too epically embarrassed to even move, Speedy pulled something from his belt and bent down next to Jess, Alicia's knocked-out little sister. He waved what must have been smelling salts just under her nose, and she jerked fitfully awake.

"_Yeee_ **_gods_**…" Jess used a rather nerdy exclamation as she rose groggily from the ground. She took a quick look around, saw the two guys and her sister with her, then shook her head, rubbed her eyes for a while, and took a second, **_much_** **_closer_** look. "Sis… **_please_** tell me I'm **_not_** **_dreaming_**…" she requested slowly, as her confusion and disbelief transformed very slowly into a kind of wide-eyed, manic ecstasy that unnerved both men the instant they recognized it.

"These guys **_saved_** us!" Alicia confirmed excitedly, burying her embarrassment now that her little sis was able to capture the center of attention.

"**_EEEEEEE_**!" Jess squealed as she leapt to her feet and grabbed her sister around the waist, just barely coming up to her shoulder even as she nearly matched Speedy's height, "Oh my **_GOD_**! It's **_ROBIN_** and **_SPEEDY_**! _IdontbelivethishowcouldohmygoditsreallythemherewaittillItelltheothers_!" she belted out her excited raving so quickly that everything ran together in one continuous stream, and the two guys rolled their eyes in horror as they realized what they had on their hands here.

Teenage Fangirl.

"**_Calm_** **_down_** squirt!" Alicia said, simultaneously embarrassed and entertained by the way Jess was freaking out, most likely because it had been **_her_** first impulsive reaction as well. Robin at least was bigger than any boy-band singer or movie star alive as far as teenage-heartthrob status went, and Speedy was nothing bad to look at himself. "I think you have something to say to them… you know… for **_rescuing_** us?"

"**_Oh_**, **_right_**!" Jess shouted every word, managing to be articulate at least as her mind was blown by the epic personalities she'd stumbled across, "Can I get your **_autographs_**? It's just that—the **_other_** girls in my Teen Titan fan club won't **_believe_** I met you otherwise!"

The two guys were shocked into a sad, sad silence by the way the young lady was freaking out, having become far too familiar with this kind of thing. With Speedy, it was mostly disgust at the waste it was to get this kind of admiration from a little kid, still so far away from any level of actual sexual maturity. He may have been a philandering pig, but he placed his limit at fifte—**_sixteen_**. Definitely **_sixteen_**.

With Robin, it was more of a professional pride thing. He'd spent years developing an air of danger and mystery in Gotham, and it hadn't taken a few months out in full-daylight crime fighting to earn him a titanic fan-following and a brisk trade in posters etc. printed with his likeness (from which he saw no profit). If it kept up the way it had, he'd loose all his street cred, and then he'd actually have to expend the effort of **_fighting_** punks like those rapists.

"Uh… I don't know…" Robin was the first one to venture an answer, and the girl almost broke down into tears right there, her makeup hack-job already massacred by the ones she'd shed in fear of her life earlier.

"**_Please_**!" she almost screamed this time, desperation overcoming her excitement in a heartbeat, her eyes becoming almost crazed as she began to tremble with fear that she'd miss out on this unbelievable opportunity, "I don't have any paper on me—" and this was rather obvious considering she wasn't wearing enough clothing to hide a nickel, much less an autograph book, "but if you have a marker—you can—you can sign me **_anywhere_** you **_want_**!"

"_Nononononono_!" the two guys shouted simultaneously, holding up hands and looking away quickly before she could complete the rather insane motion that would have ended with her flashing them from behind her tube-top. It wasn't as though it was hiding much, but the idea of it all made a big difference, and Alicia was almost turning purple with embarrassment as her sister continued to freak out.

"**_Come on_**!" Jess went on, turning to appeal to her sibling for aid, "Alice, stick up for me here! I may **_never_** get another **_chance_**!"

"Uh guys?" Alicia asked, as the two calmed down again, ever wary of the fandom-crazed teen even now making goo-goo eyes at them and wringing her hands, a slight note of desperation making it into the older sister's tone when she spoke her timid query. At the sight of the that gorgeous, pleading expression, Speedy at least lost any resistance he might have still had and shook his head in amusement rather than horror as he took a closer look over at the younger woman, who was still barely containing her excitement at the situation. By the look of her, one would never have known how close she came to being brutally gang-raped and murdered by those gangsters. Kids these days—**_totally_** desensitized.

"Okay, okay," Speedy acceded at last, figuring anything that would distract her from disintegrating into a trauma-shattered mess about what had nearly happened was worth the obnoxious fawning, "but I don't think anyone here's got a marker, so I don't know if we'll be signing **_anything_**." The last he said as a nod to the fact that her hands still wandered dangerously near the edge of her tube-top near her breasts.

"**_But_**…" she began to crumble, the shadow of utter destruction breaking her enthusiastic expression.

"SOOO—" Speedy hurried to qualify the statement, "I think something else might be in order to commemorate our meeting! I think I could part—" and he reached behind himself with his lightning-quick draw to pull an energy arrow from his quiver, "with one of my signature projectiles." He completed the statement by doing something to the arrowhead that caused it to stop glowing, then handed it gently to Jess, who accepted it with shuddering hands and wide, unblinking eyes.

"Speedy!" Robin snapped, outraged, "what do you think you're doing! Those are **_dangerous_**!"

"Ah chill, I've disarmed it," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand and a huge smile, then turned to face his uptight partner even as Jess began the process of freaking out on a whole new level, the hand holding the arrow shaking violently with the force of her excitement. "Besides, I was figuring you could give her a birdarang."

"Give me a WHAT?" Jess screeched, ecstatic.

"Give her a **_WHAT_**?" Robin screamed, horrified. "No! **_No_**! And hey—**_NO_**!" His flat-out refusal had not been unexpected, and Speedy hurried to lay on his convincing arguments before the girl's utterly blown mind could recover far enough to clear her blank stare and allow his refusal to register.

"Oh **_come_** **_on_**—" Speedy started with the classic objection, only to be cut off.

"A birdarang is **_not_** a **_souvenir_**!" Robin shouted into the near mirror-image of Speedy's face arranged against his. "It's a highly dangerous piece of combat hardware, balanced for supreme gyroscopic stabilization and sharpened to a **_monomolecular_** edge! If you **_hold_** it wrong it'll cut your **_finger_** clean off!"

"Well…" and Speedy grew a rather sadistic smile all of a sudden, the kind of look that made Robin break out in an equally sudden cold sweat, "I **_suppose_** I could give her a **_different_** kind of memento then… like… say… some **_anecdotes_** about a certain weekend in **_Barcelona_**?"

"…. Barcelona?" Robin asked, confused rather than terrified now, Speedy's blackmail falling flat on its face. "Wasn't Barcelona where **_you_** downed half a bottle of 151, dressed up in nothing but the **_top_** half of that **_Mr_**. **_Snake_** costume and—"

"OH! **_Right_**, that **_was_** Barcelona!" Speedy flushed as he thought back, "I was really **_too_** **_wasted_** that day, but you have to admit, the Mr. Snakey dance was pretty fricken **_hilarious_**!" Absorbed in the alcohol-blurred memory, Speedy missed Robin's glare of utter disgust.

"**_Dude_**!" Robin shouted, their female audience forgotten for the time being, "You were arrested for **_public_** **_indecency—_**in **_Europe_**! That wasn't a nude beach you **_twit_**, and you know you were **_totally_** busted after you gave an encore performance for those Cardinals on leave from the **_Vatican_**!"

"**_Hey_**!" Speedy became defensive at last, also forgetting their audience in the enticing grip of banter, "I'd never **_seen_** a Cardinal before, **_okay_**? I thought they were seniors from the local shriner's club… they looked like they could use a good laugh **_anyway_**!"

"**_A good laugh_**!" Robin screamed, totally exasperated at Speedy's utter lack of remorse, "Speedy, one of them was just elected **_Pope_**! The **_Pope_** has seen **_you_** do the **_Mr_**. **_Snakey_** dance!"

"Ah… but he **_didn't_** see my **_face_**!" Speedy shot right back, his smile almost manic with glee at the way he was infuriating Robin.

"Which should be **_proof_** to you that there **_is_** a God!" Robin spat the yell into Speedy's crazy smirk, then turned away in disgust, shaking his head and muttering curses under his breath.

This was about the time they became aware of the expressive giggles coming from behind them, their audience announcing itself with lilting waves of delighted humor tickling through the empty nighttime streets. Recognizing what he'd just been shouting out loud, Robin began to blush furiously, his anger forgotten in a cleansing wash of extreme embarrassment. Somehow, he managed to feel awful despite the fact that he'd merely borne witness to the terribly indecent events. Speedy, who'd actually been the **_subject_** of them, took the laughter in stride—in fact, he seemed to thrive on it, tossing Alicia another suggestive series of looks that quickly turned her laughter into a blush of her own. Jess continued to laugh for some time however, and it continued to get to the Boy Wonder on a very deep level.

"Okay! **_Fine_**!" he shouted at last, cutting through the torture of laughter before it drove him over his limit. Without explaining further, he flicked his wrist dismissively, bringing a birdarang into his fingers as though he'd pulled it from thin air, then striding forward angrily and handing it very gently to Jess. "Never **_throw_** it, never **_swing_** it, never even **_touch_** the edge to anything you don't want cut. I won't be held responsible for lacerations, amputations, **_or_** decapitations." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked away, overwhelmed with relief at the end to her mirth.

Behind him, Jess stared at the weapon like she was holding the Holy Grail itself, her face flushing deeply and winding up into an expression that promised an indescribable explosion of excitement and emotion. Instead, just as it reached peek, she emitted a small, quavering peep, her legs trembled then gave out, and she crumbled to her knees, a deep crimson blush running along all that exposed mid-pubescent skin, her harsh breaths coming in shaking gasps as she began to tear up slightly, her gaze never moving from the iconic tool of destruction she held.

"Hey Robin," Speedy whispered conspiratorially to his buddy as the dour fellow came to a stop without turning, "she had **_quite_** a reaction. Actually… I **_think_** you just made Jail-bait Super-fan back there **_cream_** herself!"

The punch came fast and hard, slamming into Speedy's ribs and knocking the air from his lungs straight through the armor. As he choked on the pain and the forced exhalation, he still managed to wheeze out a trail of laughter, his smile only growing as he keeled over onto his knees.

"**_Oh god_**—" he gasped out, as though in pain, then controlled his tone and changed it to humor with, "I **_love_** messing with you man."

Robin didn't dignify that with a response.

"Are you ladies going to be able to get where you're going okay now?" Robin asked, utterly fed up with the whole situation, all of his good humor from that relaxing brawl squandered on tolerating Speedy's antics. "Do you want us to call you a cab or something?"

"That **_won't_** be necessary!" Alicia said, almost **_too_** quickly, giving away even further the fact that she didn't want them to know where they were headed too. "We should be fine now—thank you **_so_** much!"

"W—wait!" her little sister shouted, crawling up her side until she was standing again on shaky legs, her blush brightening intensely until she almost seemed to have a red glow. "Will you—will you come with us to the party?"

"JESS!" Alicia slipped a hand over her sister's mouth and began the process of making hasty denials, "We **_weren't_** going to a party—or rather—we were headed to a **_friend's_** party—that's all. It's really **_nothing_** you two would want to see." She smiled nervously as she resisted all attempts by her younger sibling to break out and shout whatever it was she wanted them to know, and the two guys exchanged skeptical looks. Finally, Speedy expressed their indifferent disbelief with a single poignant comment.

"Considering the way you two are dressed… it must be **_some_** **_friend_**." With that, he walked around behind Robin, who had started to walk over to the nearest warehouse, and gestured conspiratorially at Alicia, making hand motions along the lines of 'call me' before he spoke up again with, "let's get out of here Robin, nightime's a burnin'."

That last comment spoken, he turned and dashed toward his buddy full-tilt, just in time for the Boy Wonder to spin around and put out both hands in a simple stirrup. With a grunt of effort and a powerful, full-body loft, Robin launched Speedy up all the way to the building's two-story high roof, and the svelte shooter caught the edge easily before yanking himself the rest of the way onto the building. Robin then paused for a moment to look at the two girls one last time, his current, general disgust with the very concept of females making it almost an effort.

"Don't do anything **_stupid_**," Robin said, perhaps hinting at how much more he knew than he was letting on as he pulled a grapple off his belt and pointed it up. "and for **_God's_** **_sake_**, be **_careful_** with that birdarang." That last comment made, he fired the grapple upward, and was gone the next moment. Alicia waited quite a while before she let her hand off Jess's mouth and began pulling her little sister along the quietly abandoned road.

"**_Alice_**!" the younger girl squealed in petulant anger, "why the **_hell_** did you **_do_** that! I was **_sooo_** about to get them to be our **_dates_**!"

"Would you **_wake_** **_up_**! This isn't a **_tea_** **_party_** we're going to Jess! If they'd known where we were headed, they **_totally_** would have **_busted_** us!" the older girl shouted right back, still amazed that she'd managed to dodge two bullets in a row like that. It was one thing to escape an exceptionally unpleasant death, but to then sneak out from under the noses of two professional crime fighters while on the way to a **_very_** illegal rave… well, she'd definitely used up all her luck for **_this_** century.

"Oh poo!" Jess expressed volumes of immaturity, still clutching her souvenirs almost reverently as she was jerked along the road.

"Don't you 'oh poo' me," Alicia was not happy as she continued to drag her sister along, "you're not even supposed to be **_out here_** tonight. I swear, why Tod didn't turn around the **_minute_** we found you hiding in the back seat—"

"It's probably because Tod is a **_dickhead_**!" Jess said flatly, and Alicia came to a sudden stop as she turned on her little sister. There was an air of tension stretched out over a long minute as older sibling and younger sibling stared one another down, until finally the older sister yielded the point.

"At least we can agree on **_something_**," Alicia said sadly as she started walking again, no longer dragging her sister, who put into step just behind her anyway. Tod had been so eager to get them out here tonight, he hadn't even hesitated to bring Jess along when they'd found her. The bastard had nothing on his mind but getting some action, even right there in the car, with Jess **_watching_**. There was the small satisfaction of the names she'd called him, including pencil-dick (not that she'd ever seen it), and a number of other, more esoteric things she only even knew to say because she'd heard her mom shout them at their bum-ass dad before he left. "Anyway…just… **_come_** **_on_**. Jackie will be at the party too, and you can sleep in her car until it's time to go home."

"No chance!" Jess objected, utterly defiant, "I didn't sneak out here tonight to wait in the car—I came to **_party_**!"

Alicia didn't even respond, she just spun around and gave her little sister a stinging, open-hand smack right across the face. The sound of the resounding impact echoed off of the featureless brick buildings, and for some time the only noise was the rebounding crack of flesh-on-flesh. Tears of surprise and stinging pain flooded Jess's eyes, and as she began to sob slowly, Alicia wrapped her up in an enormous hug, pulling her close and sitting the both of them down on the street curb.

"I don't know if you understand this—" Alicia began, her own, silent sobs dripping terrified tears down onto Jess's shoulders as the younger girl's own tears of confusion and faceless fear ran down onto her far too tight shorts, "But we almost **_died_** a few minutes ago—"

"I—I—" Jess couldn't respond, her own shock finally catching up with her after the displacing excitement of meeting the pair of idols, "**_Oh Alice_**!" The two ended all words then and there as they shared the terror of their close brush with an end of incalculable, unimaginable horror—to be used and disposed of by men so twisted that to them, a woman was little more relevant than a urinal, and of similar natural function. Their sobs wore on for some time, until finally they worked all of the immediate nightmarish stress away in a torrent of purifying tears.

* * *

"Heh, this is one of my favorite parts," Speedy began when they were both on the rooftop, turning back to look down as the two women stood silently in the street. "Playing guardian angle for a few hours ought to—**_hey_**!" he noticed that Robin was already making his way away, and he ran after the other guy compulsively, "Where do you think **_you're_** going?" 

"Last time I checked the plan was to go get smashed," Robin said matter-of-factly, never stopping as he reached all-out sprint and leapt full-extension over to the next rooftop. Speedy kept up, but just barely, and in a moment, his confusion was matched only by his impulse to indignation.

"But dude, Robin, you **_know_** where they're headed, **_right_**?" Speedy asked, wondering if the obvious destination those two had in mind, coincidentally identical to their own, could have conceivably eluded Robin, even considering the stress he'd been under.

"**_Of_** **_course_**," and now Robin was indignant, his professional pride clearly insulted by that question, "**_They're_** going to the same rave **_we're_** about to raid for booze, **_duh_**."

"And what—you're just going to **_let_** them?" Speedy was genuinely amazed, never having expected to see such rampant irresponsibility from Robin no matter how the other guy was feeling. "I mean, the hot one, **_sure_**, she's old enough to make her own mistakes like that, but the little one—come **_on_** man!"

"I'm not their dad **_or_** their brother," Robin said coldly, as he wound up and leapt again, clearing another enormous gap with Speedy just barely managing to match his enormous long-jumps. "Umph—" Robin grunted as he landed, then stood up, took off again, and picked up where he left off, "Whatever they might do now is **_none_** of **_my_** business. I warned them not to do anything **_stupid_**, and as far as I'm concerned, that absolves me of **_any_** responsibility."

Speedy literally couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was so stunned, in fact, that he missed the next jump by about four inches, his body dropping like any other object left in midair, only a single, wildly flailing hand managing to grip the edge before he plummeted the rather painful and possibly fatal distance to the blank pavement below. Robin had turned around and was offering him a hand the next instant, but Speedy slapped it away as he slowly managed his way up the ledge himself.

"Damn, Robin, what are you **_saying_**!" Speedy asked when he'd gotten his thunderous pulse under control, never having been as comfortable with roof-leaping as a guy who'd been dancing on skyscrapers after a childhood filled with trapeze and tightropes. "Don't you know what could **_happen_** to those two?"

"**_Gee_**, let me **_think_** about that…" Robin paused, glaring at Speedy rather than even pretending to think about it, "they could get picked up by another rapist. They could get to the party and drink themselves so senseless that they're easy prey—or hell, just **_die_**. An enterprising pimp could slip them some crack, get them hooked, and they could end up working the street by next week. Some prick could doctor their drinks and lord knows **_where_** they'll wake up. And then of course, they might just do something **_stupid_**—against my **_specific_** instructions, I might add—like hell, I dunno, wash down some E with that drain-cleaner they try to pass off as vodka at these things, and then subsequently get rolled out into the street and left to die when they hit the floor an hour later. The possibilities for tragedy are almost as **_numerous_** as they are **_disgusting_**. But you know… I **_refuse_** to worry about them."

"**_Why_**?" Speedy asked, his voice heating with anger at the way Robin was talking. "Is it because you're too wrapped up in your own **_petty_** **_problems_** to worry about two strangers? I **_never_** thought I'd see **_that_** day…" and Speedy's sad, sad disgust was obvious to hear.

"No," Robin said calmly, shaking his head and growing a… a **_smile_**, of all things, turning to fix a smug expression on his excitable friend. "It's because I heard **_this_**:" and he held up a small transmitter/recorder he'd been hiding in his palm.

"We've taken enough chances tonight!" Alicia's voice came through loud and clear, blurting right into Speedy's uncomprehending expression, "We're going to go in, get Jackie, explain what happened, and get **_home_**!" Speedy stared on in stunned silence as Robin let the message finish playing.

"I'm so **_sorry_** Alice!" Jess sobbed out miserably, "I just wanted to hang out with you! I didn't mean to worry you, I never wanted **_this_**!" 'This' was where Robin cut the feed, then turned and began to set up his next jump.

"Why you **_lousy_** **_prick_**!" Speedy shouted, his surprise becoming an embarrassed smirk as he realized what an ass he'd made of himself, "you planted a transmitter on them! You were planning to keep tabs on them from square one!" Speedy hurried to follow Robin's lead again as he made the next leap, so at first there was no response, just a casual backward glance from the black-haired nut revealing a brilliant grin.

"What can I say?" Robin answered him when they were both standing on the next roof, signaling a halt as they finally reached the bay and the enormous system of commercial piers there. "Just because I'm having some lady troubles doesn't change who I am. Besides, I've always had kind of a soft-spot a damsel in distress—even if it was never as big as my hard-spot for women that can whoop ass in their own right."

"Whatever!" Speedy dismissed it all out of hand, grinning wildly at the idea of Robin making a joke, trying to remember the last time he'd seen the guy in such good spirits. He'd been putting on a good show of being morose, but now that Speedy had gotten him engaged, given him something to put that sharp-ass mind of his to work on, and gotten him out of the circular-thinking, fantastically confused mess of denial and heartache he'd been wallowing in, he was recovering quickly. The guy was just about ready to mellow out over a nice drink or twenty, pass out, and wake up later today with a hangover and the opportunity to attack his problems from a fresh angle, unclouded by his inability to deal with all those awful new emotions. Or that was the **_plan_** anyway. We all **_know_** how **_plans_** can be.

The two of them spent a long moment examining the scene at pier 24 before either of them said anything. The mob of cars mashed together in the cargo loading/unloading area would eventually draw the cops, but bribes had gone to the necessary people to ensure that this would not be soon. The barbed-wire fences that stood between the ships and parking lot were meant to be a representation that customs regulations were being enforced, but this side of the docks hadn't been used for anything but overflow of local freight in so long that they didn't even post **_security_** **_guards_** anymore. The fence's one opening was at a guard station long-abandoned, taken over by burly, mean-looking bounces and a cashier that gave a whole new meaning to the word 'greasy.' Beyond the fences stood the scene of the crimes, all several hundred of them taking place on the apparently derelict tanker ship that was currently hosting the hottest underground venue on the west coast. This was what Speedy had been talking about, and now, looking at it, Robin had second, third, **_and_** fourth thoughts.

"How are we going to run this?" the Boy Wonder asked, as his sensibilities and sense of justice smashed firmly into his desire to get stinking drunk someplace camera's wouldn't intrude.

* * *

"That never ceases to amaze me," Speedy said calmly, his voice barely carrying over the blasting techno-dance beat that reverberated along the surprisingly close, chokingly humid space containing the party. 

The two heroes had opted for a less than direct route to getting what they wanted, a necessary effort that Speedy had intended from square one, much to Robin's approval—or **_at_** **_least_** such that he could overcome his **_disapproval_** of the whole matter now that he wasn't so **_blinded_** by the **_desperation_** that had roped him into the deal in the **_first_** **_place_**. Thus, after sneaking on board quite to the ignorance of anyone running the party, they'd made their way spy-like into the rather odd space that had been created within the bowls of the ship to house the rave. Speedy's amazement, so eloquently expressed moments ago, was directed at the Boy Wonder's current antics, as he was tightrope walking quite effortlessly across an aluminum lighting fixture at least thirty feet off the ground, making his way into position to begin their operation in earnest.

"I've explained this to you before man, several times now, in fact," Robin said pleasantly as he reveled in the thrill of walking the inch-wide pole so high above the hard steel of the floor below, "balance is in my blood, plain and simple. If you believe my old man's stories, I was born on parallel bars… and **_conceived_** on a **_trapeze_**."

"Ooooh—**_kinky_**!" Speedy shouted, having heard that story a million times by now, but none the less happy to have Robin talking about something other than his predicament. "Just don't let it go to your head! One false move and they'll be scraping you off the floor like some brain-fired OD."

"You just worry about getting those lights," Robin answered as he reached his position and tied a line from his ankle to the flimsy pole even now bending beneath his weight, "I've got this down."

With that assurance, the two fell to silence, completely focused on working in sync on this. They were both high above the dance floor, currently standing on the massive arrayed lighting of multiple colors that had been custom built into the regular storage space of the ship to lend atmosphere. What had resulted was a wildly different design from normal cargo vessels, one that left a very exploitable causeway suspended high over the partiers with light-hanging poles coming off of it at regular intervals. One of those poles happened to be directly over the extremely busy bar, and it was this one currently occupied by the Boy Wonder. Speedy remained on the sturdy maintenance scaffold in the middle of the huge space, and both men were well hidden by the bright lights that would invariably be shining into the eyes of anyone that might chance to look up.

Suddenly, Robin turned and gave Speedy the signal, and the red-head wasted no time in snipping the necessary wires to plunge the ship into utter darkness. As the beat continued to thump incessantly, pressing through the darkened space like an enormous hand to squeeze the head and chest of the mostly-high, almost universally drunk party patrons, the DJ didn't hesitate for a moment, but wound up an old hand-cranked fire-truck siren for what he figured to be part of the show. The piercing wail drew every eye in the house, even as people screamed in excitement, the only light to see by cast by ever-present, multi-colored glow sticks and various knick-knacks, whirly-gigs, and toy light-sabers people had brought to create odd lights and sounds during these particular portions of the night's entertainment.

Under such perfect cover, it was child's play for Robin to lower himself down to the bar on an auto-wench, nab some booze, and wind himself back up again without anyone being the wiser. After all, in the nearly complete dark, even someone looking right at him would have been hard-pressed to pick him out against the walls with their scattered psychedelic paint-jobs. In this way, he was in and out in a flash, off the wench and fairly gliding back to the scaffolding along that murderously flimsy aluminum bar. Once he was safely next to Speedy, the marksman reconnected the lights, and people below were almost disappointed as the room brightened once more and the siren died out. The DJ didn't know why it ended so quickly either, but he distracted everyone from this fact by changing tracks theatrically, and the party was back in full swing before anyone could really complain.

"So what did you manage to haul in oh great ethanol bandit?" Speedy said sarcastically, wheedling on the fact that Robin still wasn't entirely comfortable about what they were doing here.

"Ahh, I couldn't see in that mess, and I didn't stick around to read the labels while I was down there, so lets check it out shall we?" he suggested, hardly letting on how much all this had to be getting to him. "Wow!" he exclaimed when he actually got a look, "It's looking like overkill by about five times for what we need! We have… Jose, Capn' M, Absolut, and **_your_** 'old friend,' Mr. Jack Daniels."

"**_Jesus_**, what a bunch of retail **_spooge_**!" Speedy exclaimed in disdain, "What—did they knock off an ABC to stock this party?"

"Of **_course_** it's stolen, and don't knock it too hard," Robin reminded him, "the only reason I agreed to swipe this stuff is because the insurance companies have already paid claims on the losses. Stealing from thieves doesn't count."

"Yeah, sure, but still—for **_Christ's_** **_sake_**, most of those can have their quality summarized by '**_it'll get ya drunk_**," and he let that hang in the air for a moment, until he was certain Robin was disgusted and not entertained. At **_that_** point, he calmed down a little, realizing he didn't have a lot of room to gripe considering how eminently right the price on them had been, "Then again… I guess you can't expect to match the contents of a billionaire's 100-year old mahogany liquor cabinet with what you find at a teen-scene rave. **_Whatever_**—at least we covered the full spectrum."

"No kidding, I wasn't looking and I **_still_** managed to grab tequila, rum, vodka, and whisky all at once," Robin muttered playfully, eyeing the bottles with a mixture of longing and trepidation.

"Yeah, but what you **_didn't_** grab was shot glasses," Speedy reprimanded Robin shamelessly, grabbing the Absolut and the whisky for himself and leaving Robin to the taste of the southern hemisphere, "so **_be_** **_careful_**. We're here to get shit-faced for a while, not to take turns dying of alcohol poisoning. Now have a seat, pop a cork, and let's chat. Despite all that's been said, we still have things to talk about, you and I."

Robin didn't answer, he just planted his spirits onto the scaffolding, sat down, and flipped himself around until he was facing away. Rather than become incensed at this apparent rejection, Speedy did exactly the same thing, setting his back against Robin's so they each had something to lean back against, the intense lights and sound of the party below vibrating the very metal of the narrow walkway they sat upon. Then there was an electric popping sound in his ear, and immediately the two were connected again.

"Hey, mic check, mic check—how's it going perv?" Robin asked directly into his head, the whispered words dying under the unrelenting assault of the dance beat, but the radio signal coming in loud and clear into his earpiece.

"Signal's fine my virgin friend," Speedy sniped right back, then pried the cork out of the vodka bottle with one of his arrows and took a long whiff. He pulled his nose away quickly, wincing at the mass-produced aroma's crude bite, then shook his head sadly. "So, I guess here's to you **_Dick_**," Speedy spoke his favorite toast, playing a word game that had become an epic inside joke between the two.

"No, no!" Robin protested past a contained laugh, "here's to **_you_**, Cock—I mean **_Roy_**!" Robin answered with the response he could only use in complete privacy like this, raising his rum bottle up to tap it against Speedy's similarly raised vodka bottle before each took a miniscule hit to start the night. Both took a moment to appreciate the peculiar burning kick of their chosen beverage, particularly as the fluids hit stomachs empty of anything but a pittance of ice-cream. It was **_not_** going to take long to become incoherent tonight—**_no_** **_sir_**.

"So Robin," Speedy began cordially, stretching out to become more comfortable on the cold metal scaffold as he leaned back into his old friend, "how long have we been doing this now?"

"You mean going 'out'?" Robin asked, before allowing his face to contort slightly in concentration. "I suppose if you consider Memorial Day weekend in Gotham to be the first time… that being the time we **_met_**… that'd make it about five years."

"**_Damn_**… time she **_does_** fly, no?" Speedy asked, taking another tiny hit from the bottle and letting the vodka's burn warm his body, "Now that I think about it, it must have been at **_least_** that long, because these trips of ours go all the way back to our sidekick days. I mean—God!—do you remember when you and Old Bats came down to Star City chasing Two-Face and we all got together, you, me, Bats, and G.A., to bust open his counterfeiting operation?"

"Oh yeah!" Robin responded semi-fondly between tiny swigs of rum, harkening back with little effort to simpler days, "that was the night you talked me into sneaking off into that strip-club with you."

"And wasn't it **_great_**?" Speedy asked, reminiscing easily in the hopes of putting his pal at ease.

"Great?" and Robin's tone soured, "Speedy, we were twelve! **_Twelve_**! I practically pissed myself, you **_actually_** got a nosebleed, and then—we got **_caught_**. It's just damn lucky they thought we were posers in costumes, or lord knows **_what_** the tabloids would have said."

"Yeah, yeah," Speedy dismissed the less fortunate end of that night out of hand, "But that **_was_** when we decided to get together for these little jaunts on a regular basis. A few months later it was Maui, which was just a while before Key West."

"Followed by, at various points in our shared adolescence," Robin supplemented his comment, "Madrid, Paris, London, Amsterdam—My god Amsterdam—Rio, Vegas, Barcelona, the Rivera, New Orleans, Tokyo—**_MY_** **_GOD_** Tokyo—and any number of **_other_** places two rich kids with an excess of energy and ingenuity could find to make trouble for themselves." He paused for a long moment, as if in deep thought, and Speedy figured he'd gone into brooding about problems he was supposed to be forgetting. Fortunately, he **_wasn't_**, as indicated when he continued, "And if I'm not mistaken, you barely escaped jail terms in more than **_half_** of those places!" Robin went on, recalling narrow scrapes with the police and the nightmare it had been destroying certain incrementing photos. "I **_swear_**, the amount of trouble you get your perverted ass into is surpassed only by the amount of jail time you've weaseled out of serving!"

"Oh **_give it _**a**_ rest_**!" Speedy punctured Robin's attempt at indignation. "the only laws I've ever broken were stupid, out of date renditions of legislated morality. I'm sorry, but the vice codes have just never made much of an impression on me, as you'll note by the fact that I'm not doing anything to stop what's going on down below us."

"And **_about_** that—" Robin almost got started complaining again, but Speedy cut him off.

"Don't you **_start_**—we agreed that trying to bust these assholes wouldn't serve any productive purpose!" Speedy overrode Robin's concerns for the umpteenth time. "These morons would go someplace to get high no matter what. At least here, there's a slight chance their friends can get them to the hospital if they crap out, and there are bar-tenders to cut the boozers off if they get out of hand. Granted the drug-dealers are friggen rampant, but hell—that's what **_this_** is for!" and Speedy held up his prize slingshot proudly, leaning over slightly to look over the edge. Robin followed his gaze, and in a moment, they were both scanning the area below. Soon, Speedy actually pulled a small device out of his belt, a mechanical scanner of some sort to be sure, and began examining the screen. Soon, he pointed out their first target.

"See that smarmy numb-nut with the big hair?" Speedy asked, pointing out a much older fellow in a fantastically ugly suit and wearing far too much jewelry.

"Falco Vinconi, the crack baron of the lower west side," Robin rattled the guy's name off from memory, his recent and rather reluctant exploration of mundane crime as a release for his pent up energy having yielded obvious gains. "That punk could hand out crack-sikles to kindergartners in front of city hall without even getting a dirty look, **_that's_** how powerful he is. He's got so many connections that the police can't touch him any more than **_we_** can."

"Not **_exactly_**…" and Speedy pulled a small marble out of a dispenser on the bottom of his quiver, holding it up for examination. "This is the S.T.A.R. labs premier model 'magic bullet.' It delivers a full-force impact, then evaporates into a colorless, odorless gas the next instant. **_Watch_**—**_And_**—**_Learn_**."

As Robin looked on in amazement, Speedy lined up his shot on the living scum who presumed to walk among actual people, most of them innocent enough—recreational drug users, compulsive carousers, and teenagers out to make an appearance at what had become known as a 'cool scene.' There was a long moment of tension, then Vinconi took a shot of whatever he was drinking, and Speedy let fly. The marble clocked the fiend on the side of his head at a stupendous velocity, and to all appearances, Vinconi just passed out under the strength of his drink, falling backward stiffly and hitting the ground with a resounding thud. His body was lost in the mash of partiers until his bodyguards could rush forward and help him up, but it was clear in any case that he wouldn't be giving out anymore free trial samples of cocaine tonight. Up on the scaffold, the two guys were lost in barely stifled laughter, the need to keep their perch from shaking around too much in conflict with the enormous hilarity of Speedy's marksmanship.

These antics went on for some time, the two continuing to nurse their liquor as Speedy went on to nail a heroin dealer with another 'can't hold his drink' ruse, got a gigantic bouncer to punch the living daylights out of an ecstasy dealer with a stinging pellet or two, and, to top it all off, knocked out two crystal-meth dealers in such a compromising spooning position as it looked like they were cuddling homosexuals passed out in a corner. Robin was just about to suggest—nay, **_demand_** that Speedy continue when there was a sudden alarm from the device the marksman had been examining earlier.

"Oh crap…" and Speedy looked down to see what they were dealing with. Robin continued to be a passive observer as Speedy was suddenly possessed by an incredible tension. "Why that **_lazy_** **_mother_**—!" Speedy cursed under his breath as he looked over the side and down at the bar, pulling back for another shot off of his catapult.

"What is it?" Robin asked, taking another sip of rum and felling things start to get truly slippery inside his head. He plopped back down onto the scaffold so as to accommodate himself to his altered balance while Speedy continued to try and hold his slingshot straight.

"That cock-sucker down at the bar—he' just slipped some flunitraefulflf—" Speedy slurred badly, then tried again, "flunitrazepeshlel—**_flunitrazepam_**—right into that girl's drink!"

"Fluni-whatnow?" Robin wasn't exactly on the ball, though the chemical certainly sounded familiar.

"Date-Rape drug," Speedy qualified, getting that out without trouble, at least. In a moment, and with Robin looking on in interest, Speedy let loose with another shot, shattering the man's shot glass before he could even try to offer it to the young woman next to him at the bar. The explosion of fluid and glass sliced his hand open even as the pellet evaporated, and the man's shout of surprise and subsequent cursing was cause for great amusement for the two men up on high.

"Nice shot…" Robin said through a giggle, his voice trailing off as though he would say more, though he simply continued to sit and chuckle quietly to himself.

"Not **_really_**," Speedy managed to object, staring at his hand like there was something special about it, his vodka and slingshot laying forgotten to one side, "I was aiming for the bashtard's head. Very little annoys me more than lazy pricks who think they can use drugs to skip through the valalorush art of wooing a pretty lady." As Speedy spoke, he continued to slur very slightly, without even noticing it himself, and Robin took the moment to get a closer look at the bottle of absolut.

"Well hey man…" he paused to wince forcefully at the effort of focusing his vision with the intense music pounding in the background, "I'd say you're about four and change shots down this bottle… I'd be impresshhed you were shooting in the right **_direction_**."

"Yeah, yeah," Speedy snapped the bored dismissal again, and then plopped fully down onto the scaffold, his own balance becoming untrustworthy in the extreme, "guess its time to stop jerking around and shhtart on the real business."

"What was that again?" Robin asked detachedly, and Speedy couldn't tell if it was serious or not.

"**_Women_**," the marksman finally said, deciding it didn't matter if he'd actually forgotten or not, "and what you should do about **_yoursh_**."

"Ah **_nuts_**…"

"You know what your—what your **_specific_** problem is?" Speedy asked, not at all expecting his buddy to actually respond to his rather rhetorical opening statement. In truth, there was the expected long pause, but Robin rather than Speedy ended it by speaking up in a voice devoid of any trace of happiness.

"I'm **_trapped_**," he started out coldly, "in a situation where my previously existing feelings of unbreakable protective intensity are quickly ballooning into mind-contorting pangs of devotion and desire equally split between two magnificently wonderful and worthy women. The resultant situation begs a set of unacceptable solutions—either in the sense that it will end in a broken heart, or in the sense that the relationship is neither socially acceptable nor dynamically feasible." There was a slight pause, Robin himself **_stunned_** **_by_** and Speedy not having yet **_noticed_** the syllables flowing smoothly from his drunken lips. Robin blinked several times, shook his head as though to clear it of something, then finished, "it **_suckshs_**."

"Hey—No, no, no!" Speedy rejected Robin's words automatically along the line of the argument he'd already mostly prepared in his muddled head, then his dulled synapses actually registered what the other guy had actually **_said_**, and he paused to focus an indescribably dirty look at Robin. "**_Yes_**—actually, that's **_exactly_** right. **_Wait_** a **_minute_**…" It was Speedy's turn to pause as suspicions became certainties, and he was actually upset as he accused, "**_You're_** not **_drunk_** **_enough_** yet!"

"**_Chill_**!" Robin ordered, as the two moderately impaired guys began to struggle, Speedy trying to stuff the bottle of Jose Cuervo down Robin's throat. Robin still had a slight edge reflex-wise, and managed to get Speedy's arms trapped, though not before pungent tequila had poured all over the both of them. "Come on Speedy," Robin said, completely evenly, his dizziness dispelled mostly by the seriousness ruling his mind, "I don't **_need_** anymore liquor. I can **_see_** now—which means I'm just drunk **_enough_**."

"I **_disagree_**!" Speedy snapped, and the entire scaffold began to sway seriously as they rolled through another series of creative grapples, spreading liquor even further around and finally knocking the untouched whisky bottle clear out into the clueless partiers below. It spun down into the crowd and clocked some random speed-freak a harsh one, and this was around the same time Robin flipped around Speedy and pinned him to the scaffold with his arms pressed into his back.

"I can **_see_** now…" Robin managed to articulate, his voice cracking with deep misery, "I need to **_pick_** one—I have to give up one and **_endure_** the agony of her seeing her agony… because that's better than keeping us all in eternal suspense. It's… it's my **_responsibility_**… because I **_love_** them…" The alcohol was quickly blurring everything bothering Robin into one mish-mash of unrestrained agony, an unfortunately common effect of getting smashed that could only be cured with blinding amounts of additional liquor. As Speedy had said, he **_wasn't_** **_drunk_** **_enough_** yet.

"Heh… you think you know what you're talking about… but you **_don't_**," Speedy spoke his mind from the rather inescapable pin Robin had muscled him into, never having been a match for the nimble brawler in the extreme close quarters. "You think **_you've_** got problems? In love with **_two_** women are yah? I've got a problem that mops the floor with that dream-date, and it's taught me a little something that I should pass on to you now. Hell, it mighsh even **_help_**."

Robin considered his statement for a long moment, his utter, grim confidence that the conclusion he'd finally reached was quite sadly correct keeping his weight firmly on Speedy's back. The other guy wasn't even trying to struggle, just breathing heavily, as was Robin, attempting futilely to clear the buzzing in his head with gasps of air heated to a humid muck by sweaty humans. In the end, Robin realized, it was his weakness, his reaching desire to be wrong, to not have to face what he'd come to terms with, that had him pressing himself off of his old friend and snatching the last of the Captain Morgan from where it lay half-poured out on the scaffold as he plopped onto his rear.

"Do tell," he said simply, and then took a huge, gut-busting swig of hard rum to purge his own disgustingly depressing conclusions from his mind. Speedy finished prying himself off the scaffold, wiped some tequila off his uniform, licked his fingers compulsively, then winced away from the awful flavor, coming to clutch the bottle of Cuervo firmly so as to remind himself not to drink the crud anymore.

"It's like this," Speedy began as he watched Robin eradicate as many brain-cells as he possibly could with repeated pulls from the rum bottle, "you may have fallen for two babes… but I'm in love with **_all_** women. **_All of them_**."

"Wanting to nail them doshnt count ashh love," Robin muttered miserably, then slammed down his bottle and knocked it away as a crapload of rum hit his system all at once.

"I'm **_not_** kidding," Speedy went on, gratified to see that Robin had finally cleared his false understanding with a mind-eraser of cheap booze, "I was lying when I shaid I had nothing like your problem. I love em **_all_**. Every last God-blessed one of them holds a special place in my heart. I think women are probably the most wonderful thing in the entire world—and **_that_**, my friend, is a **_hard_** philosophy to live by. Because no matter what else, women are also one of the most **_terrible_** things alive."

"Woulju **_make_** **_up_** your **_mind_**?" Robin blurted, wrapping his arms around his knees and drawing them up to his chest, most likely to give him something to do with his shaking hands.

"Jush hear me out," Speedy begged, "women **_are_** wonderful, and a good man, a man that hashn't been warped by a crappy upbringing or his own inshipid self-worth, can't really hope to find a greater pleasure in life than meeting a woman he can love and then doing everything in his power to brighten her life. Theresh actually a whole **_line_** of built-in rewards that can drive any sane man wild—a blush, a smile, a laugh… a kiss… an **_embrace_**… and so on—and if you ask **_me_**, **_that's_** what a guy **_should_** live for—that's just the **_best_** thing you can get."

"Mmmm," Robin agreed, his stupor deepening slightly as more and more ethanol hit his brain, but he was still coherent enough to take what he heard to heart.

"The problem ish, there are some… less than scrupupulous—ahem, **_scrupulous_** women in this world, just like with men," Speedy qualified, snatching up the vodka for another small swig, then idly tapping that bottle against the mostly empty tequila bottle. "Such a woman will take advantage of this control they can exert over men, with a lady being just as willing and able to marionette a man around by his feelings as vicea versha. Because the way women affect us can be so fundamental, especially with total **_suckers_** like you and me, the potential for being controlled, for becoming some vapid whore's real estate to be paraded around and pitted against other guys for sport, is **_very_** real—friggen **_dangerous_**, in fact."

"You're… rambling," Robin warned him distantly, sinking further into a state of mind that wouldn't be able to appreciate Speedy's advice, which **_he_** at least seemed to think was highly relevant.

"Oh—yeah, you're right," and Speedy hastily shook a haze from his eyes before continuing, "What I've been **_meaning_** to say is that, that **_pinch_** you feel, the one right **_here_**," and Speedy pointed to his chest just below his heart and just above his stomach, "is the eppishenter of those strong feelings us guys can have—well **_most_** of them anyway—and it's giving you false signals—it's **_making_** you want to do things that aren't in **_anyone's_** best interest, just because **_you_**, like me and so many other decent men, can't help but want to bring pleasure and happiness into the lives of the one, or ones, we love."

Speedy had pinpointed Robin's pain exactly, and this, more than anything else, is what lent him a tangible credibility in Robin's mind, a force of truth that drove much of the drunken stupidity out of the Boy Wonder's brain and made at least these few words stick.

"You feel **_responsible_**," Speedy went on with conviction, "like it's no one's problem other than **_yours_** that you feel beholden to the deshirers of two mistresses in your heart—but that's **_not_** true. It's isn't **_only_** your problem, and the reason you're so damn misherabible—**_miserable_**—is because your entirely unreasonable heart is dragging your completely overwhelmed mind in absolutely the **_wrong_** direction. What I'm trying to say is," and Speedy was really working at cutting out his effusive circumlocution, "who are **_you_** to just up and decide which of those women is going to get to be with you? Don't **_they_** get a say?"

Robin's mind tried to work around this concept for a little while, but hit a few walls that he didn't hesitate to inform his friend of.

"I'm not shom… not shom **_prize_** **_ham_** Speedy!" Robin muttered angrily, his body wavering slightly even as he sat down now that he was feeling the alcohol's bite in earnest. "I'm my own man! I can't jushsh-jushsh-jussht sit around and let them duke it out over me! Ish not… Ish not…"

"It's not now things are usually done, I know," and Speedy was actually becoming more coherent, at least in **_comparison_** as Robin's BAC leapt past his, "and when it **_is_** done, it's so often for selfish reasons, like some kind of sick egotistical pleasure an asshole might gesh from watching women brawl over him. The trick here—the trick is to nosh confuse yourself with those guys out for nothing but tail—"

"Like **_you_**," Robin accused, cutting off Speedy's increasingly difficult to understand lecture, belligerence rearing its ugly head out of the rum's embrace, giving his distant tone a poisoned sound.

"**_No, no_**!" Speedy protested, his own buzz making hard not to go straight to the fight right there, "that's **_not_** why I do it. I **_love_** sex, of **_coursh_**, but I'm not out to get **_myself_** off. If that were the case I'd jush use **_this_**:" and he held up his right hand, still clutching the tequila bottle. When Robin suddenly began to giggle in a bout of drunken humor, Speedy looked over at his right hand, saw the offending bottle, and switched it over to his left, holding out his right hand again. "To all thosh guys that think all sex is about getting some pretty girl to help you squeeze off a round or two," Speedy said, drawing Robin's attention back by being both exceptionally vulgar—**_and_** even more serious than the other guy was drunk, "I shay… marry old Righty… she won't do ya wrong."

For a very long moment, Robin tried to take this as a serious statement. He really made a physically visible effort. Unfortunately, he was seven or eight shots of rum gone, and so a burst of laughter finally exploded out from where he'd been containing it, so forceful that it lay him out on the scaffold and sent him into slow rolling motions as he gripped his stomach.

"Sho—sho—sho **_you're_** trying to tell **_me_** that your skirt-chashing and-and-and blazing pervershsishsty—pervershity—**_per-ver-sit-y_**…" Robin had to exert a new and intense effort to get these words out past his mirth, "are all your way of-of-of—"

"Of expressing my love of **_all_** women," Speedy confirmed while wearing an enormous smile, so utterly smug now that Robin actually began to calm down a little in confusion. "I'll try and explain something to you Mr. Virgin Romeo," Speedy started when he had the other guy's attention again, "women aren't all 'commitment and demure sighs' like polite society and all that televishhd bullshit would have you believe. You gave me the stink eye about it when I said it earlier, but some women—in fact **_all_** women, on shome level—are in contact with a much more short-term relation, immin-in-min-_in_-**_immanently_** carnal side. Whereashh the cliché is that guys are pretty well always on the lookout for a fine 'piesh of ass,' and women are into something… **_deeper_**, the truth is that a woman can be **_jusht_** as mindlessly attracted to a **_guy's_** body. I think **_you_** know that now."

"Meh…" the alcohol was doing its job well here for Robin, and the memory was more of a blurr of embarrassment rather than a terror, though the bruises still managed to throb slightly, even through the cottony ethanol-induced haze surrounding his brain.

"My problem—my inability to hold any single woman in my heart—leavsh me in a pretty—a pretty fine situation-ation," Speedy started up again, his slurring worsening, "howsh a guy supposed to brighten the life of thash many women? Flowersh? Diamonds? You and me **_together_** aren't rich enough for all that. So I've learned to give of—of **_myshelf_**!" and now he sported a truly goofy smile, apparently extremely satisfied with that explanation of his rampant promiscuity.

"… Sho… you're a philan-phil-philant—a self-sacrifishing man-whore?" Robin asked, giving his friend a cock-eyed glare through a liquor-induced grin a mile wide. It was pretty obvious what he thought, but he slurred it out anyway, "Thash the mosht arrogant pile of-of-of nashty stuff I **_ever_** heard yoush say!"

"No—**_really_**," Speedy said, his head lolling forward, then rolling limply on his shoulders as he blinked through his splitting vision, "Its really **_very_**—very **_different_** than what you're thinking," and he held up a hand as though to beg Robin's patience.

"Bull," the other guy said flatly, both having completely forgotten about his problem for the time being, "tell me whysh **_you_**… are different… from **_any_** **_other_** sex crazshed teenage **_prick_**."

"**_Responsibility_** and **_commitment_** **_to_** **_exshellence_**," Speedy said right away, as though he'd been begging Robin to ask the question. If it sounds like a business motto, it would be because it very nearly **_is_**. "I—mush to my **_notoriety_**—," he continued to wear that stupid smile, and so the two wound up giving each other equally blank grins, "have taken promis-prommmisshh—gettin' **_laid_** a lot—and made it from a sin… into a science. I'm currently batting a perfect record as far as partner satisfaction goesh, and I've got every—"

"Oh shtuff it you… you…**_you_**!" Robin ordered, unable to come up with an insult right on the spot like that in his current condition, "I'm not gonna sit here an lishen to you toot your own friggen horn. Brag on someone else's time."

"It's not bragging!" Speedy protested weakly, "I gosh all these rules and methods and thingsh to make sure it all works out perfect. Like-like-like I got strictures: don't do it when your high—cause if your high it's not really your descision—not really conshensual. And: alwashy use as many different kinds of contra-tra-tra-**_contraceptive_** ash you can right?—cause that way you get exstra coverage 'gainst makin babies—no 'scue **_not_** to. The conservatives don't want you to know thish—but sex is only dangeroush if you're stupid and irreshponsibible 'bout it …course, too bad sex **_makes_** guysh stupid—all that thinking with the **_man_** **_bits_** and whatnot…" At this point, Speedy had completely lost track of where he was going with the whole issue, and Robin wasn't too drunk to notice this fact.

"Thash **_IT_**, I—I—I—I'm **_out_** of here," Robin managed to get it out eventually, trying his best to stand and finally managing it by pulling himself up on one of the wires attaching the scaffold to the ship's deck above them. "I donsh have to lishen to you be a dick!"

"No, wait!" Speedy tried to turn the situation around, remembering that there was a point to be made in all that he was saying, unfortunately becoming fixated on the most recent one of his explanation rather than the relevant one of Robin's problem. "I have this scanner thing see—" he nearly shouted into his microphone, pulling out the box he'd been messing with earlier, "not only dosh it detect drugsh, but ish a bio-scanner that can detect EshhTeeDees right away. Latesh technolgigy!" and he was giving Robin a much more genuine smile as he tried to interest the other man again. Robin wasn't biting, rather, he was trying his best to see a straight path down the narrow scaffold, past his ex-friend, and back up onto deck for some fresh air. It wasn't working out too well.

"Jush shut the **_F'ing_** **_hell_** up!" Robin demanded, Speedy's continued antics doing nothing at all to keep the world around him from spinning, spinning, spinning away, throwing even his legendary balance completely out of whack. It was the **_wrong_** move.

"Oh **_right_**—!" Speedy shouted indignantly, getting up onto his own unsteady feet and standing between Robin and where he was trying to stagger, "you ungrateful **_bashtard_**! I'm tryin' to help you out—and you don't know how **_good_** you've **_gosh_** it! I have to jump through hoopsh to have safe sex, but you have the friggen alien Aphrodite pulling your pansh off—a babe you can't **_ever_** get pregnant—a girlfriend you **_never_** have to worry about **_kocking_** **_up_**—"

Well, let's just say, **_that_** was about the time Robin stopped listening. Or rather, the red haze that enveloped his mind at this point was quite impenetrable to words, and suddenly, Speedy, all three of him spinning around in vagrant circles with the rest of the room, became Robin's solitary target.

"Why you **_vulgar_** **_sonuva_**--!" he screamed, while his punch, though weighty and well engineered, flew spectacularly off-target, and as he went barreling forward off balance, he smacked right into Speedy, bowling the other guy right off his feet and sending them both into a hard sprawl on the scaffolding's flimsy metal floor.

As they were both knocked around by the fall, the sudden movements and rushing air, not to mention the swinging of their perch on its steel wires, did much to replace Robin's anger with a much more immediate, even more undeniable urge. His eye's widened, his mouth watered uncontrollably, his guts lurched, and it was all he could do to roll off Speedy and get his head over the edge of the scaffold.

"BWEAHHHH," was the general ghist of it, and I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say that it was spectacular, at least in its volume considering how little Robin had had in him besides those chocolate shakes. Suffice also to mention how extraordinarily this scene entertained Speedy, who couldn't stop laughing as he watched Robin puke his guts out into the crowd below them. He actually managed to get up and rub his friend on the back to help him choke it all out, all bad-blood forgotten in the haze of drunken amiability ruling his thoughts. That amiability only faded when he realized that the shouts of people below were actually louder than the deafening music, and that when he tried to get Robin moving, to get them both out, that the other guy was quite utterly passed out. Oh brother.

* * *

When Robin woke up, it was to have a disgustingly acrid flavor in his mouth, a splitting headache, and surprisingly, not a whole hell of a lot else wrong. He opened his eyes, felt the fresh sea breeze on his back and face, and looked straight forward for quite some time before he realized what he was seeing. 

"AHH!" he shouted reflexively, pushing himself back away from the brink of the platform he was on, having woken up with his face hanging off the edge of a tower of suitably frightening height. He barreled backward until he hit something solid with a loud clang, then began to groan as he came to a stop, a splitting agony assaulting his skull for the crime of moving so much. As he began to recover from the first knee-jerk of his reaction, he realized that his head was still a long way from clear.

"Speedy?" Robin finally managed to hazard, once he'd been able to spit some of the nastiness out of his mouth.

"Yo," the other guy answered, and it came from the other side of the platform on whose edge he'd awoken. As he looked around to find his friend exactly, Robin quickly gathered that he was on top of the tanker's bridge and living area, and the thing he was leaning against was the base of its radar dish. Speedy turned out to be exactly on the opposite side of the dish's base.

"Hey man, what happened?" Robin asked, more as a reintroduction than because he was confused. He knew exactly what had happened, and he said as much with, "Did you use the buzz-kill?"

"Yep," Speedy answered with a measured snip, "one shot for each of us, as per usual."

Buzz-kill was something else from the cutting edge of carousing-oriented pharmaceuticals. The wonderful, non-habit forming, non-toxic, highly-expensive drug cleared alcohol out of the system at an accelerated pace, compressing about seven hours of drying-out into a few minutes. It was miraculous stuff, and the two had been using it since well **_before_** its FDA approval had been blocked by the coalition of temperance-minded Christian factions who'd feared its affect on their 'nothing but abstinence' strategy toward every vice they hated. You'd be **_surprised_** what you could get a hold of with enough money and the right corporate connections.

"Man, that is some good stuff," Robin commented idly as he gathered the strength to really move, "Where would we be without it?"

"If I'm not mistaken, we'd be dead in a gutter in Moscow. I… had a bit too much vodka… and you had to get me up and moving before the Russian Mafia could ask questions about the rather crooked American flag I tagged onto their gang car with all three colors of spraypaint."

"Ah yes, **_Moscow_**… not as crazy as Tokyo or Amsterdam, but pretty nuts." The conversation had officially become strained, and Robin's head wasn't hurting any less. Despite this, he muddled through the last hour of his consciousness. He then groaned expansively.

"Ohhhh **_man_**… I remember **_everything_**… I'm… **_sorry_**," Robin was quite sincere, the remnants of the booze in his system leaving him quite emotional.

"Yeah, **_right_**," Speedy sounded even more morose than Robin had at the night's entertainingly innocent beginning, and feeling terrible—really, crushingly, **_terrible_**—Robin used the inactive radar dish to stagger around the platform they were on until he could see the other guy, who was sitting much as Robin had been with his back to the dish, staring out at the moonlit bay, still absently clutching the basically empty bottle of Jose Cuervo.

"Hey man, seriously," and Robin hunkered down woozily next to his old friend, who was currently refusing to look at him, "I didn't mean any of that. I know…" he hesitated for a moment, then got over whatever was bothering him, "I **_know_** you only act like a perv to get a rise out of me. I **_know_** that around women you **_are_** actually a decent and upstanding guy." This completely unexpected admonition exacted a slow, wide-eyed stare from Speedy, who turned to focus it on Robin with an incredible expression of surprise. "Whoa now!" Robin hurried to correct any misinterpretations there, "I **_still_** think you have sex a little too tightly wired into your brain—" and Speedy's face fell into an exasperated smirk at his prudish friend, "but I'll apologize and admit that you **_do_** at least **_care_** about women. In your own **_twisted_** little way."

"Well, you certainly have a way with apologies," Speedy teased, but it was clear he'd recovered from any fears Robin might have inadvertently instilled into him. The last thing he needed was some doubt lingering in his soul that he was somehow similar to the scum that used women as tools to masturbate with, and he didn't only mean rapists. Lazy, inconsiderate, and pushy boyfriends also fell squarely within his hate demographic.

"Alright then, if we've cleared **_that_** up," Robin started again, after a long pause in which he got a good whiff of how terrible they both smelled, "I seem to recall you trying to impart some kind of small wisdom unto me, your humble student in the ways of love."

"It's simple really," Speedy readily began to detail the plan he'd so hopelessly strayed from during their drunken raving, "a hell of a lot more effective than you just agonizing over which one you pick, then leaving one of them shell-shocked and heartbroken when you don't pick **_her_**. Just… really, just have them compete."

"Ahh…"

"No, **_really_**," Speedy went on in a powerful, emphatic tone, "once you wake them up and make certain that everything is cool after those drug-induced antics, you know, that you **_apologize_** for not **_handling_** it better, that you **_don't_** blame **_them_** or anything, that you **_aren't_** terrified of Starfire—no matter **_how_** you might **_actually_** feel" he cut off any comment Robin might make there, "just set up a series of dates. Over time, one of them is **_bound_** to grow on you. It'll give you time to discover if you can **_really_** handle how strong Starfire is, or if your feelings for Raven are **_actually_** love or just some weird cocktail of physical attraction and pity. And the best part is, this way, when you do get one rather than both, the other will at **_least_** know she had an even shot, had her free chance in open competition rather than some arbitrary decision from you. It'll still be sad, but at least it'll be fair."

Robin was quiet for a long time. He smiled slowly, and as the time wore on, his smile grew wider and wider, a rather cheerful tinge coming to the tail end of his buzz, even through the headache.

"When did you get so **_smart_**?" he asked eventually, and then cut off Speedy before he could respond, "seriously—**_when_**? Batman always said you were this terrible influence on me, that you got me into all kinds of trouble, and hell, maybe you **_have_**. But that… that's friggen **_inspired_**! That might **_actually_** work! And I mean, at **_least_** it's the first feasible approach to all this I've heard since I **_started_** stressing about it all!"

"Ahh… well," Speedy put up a mockery of modesty as he basked in the praise. Right up until Robin's sudden—

"**_But_**—" the great depressing one said, "what if I should happen to go on these trial dates… and come to realize 'hey, there's **_no way_** I could **_ever_** pick one of these spectacular women over the other'? What the **_hell_** am I supposed to do **_then_**?"

"Pshh, **_duh_**," Speedy spat at his concern, shaking his head and growing a smile Robin **_really_** didn't like. "If it comes down to that, we just use plan 'B.'"

"…Plan**_ 'B'_**?" was the exceptionally skeptical response.

"Uhh, **_yeah_**," Speedy said it like he was talking to an idiot, "Plan**_ 'B.'_**"

"Do I even want to **_know_**—"

"It'll be a bikini mud-wrestling contest. Winner gets to date you. **_I'll_** be the judge."

Robin wound up to smack him one, and Speedy was already flinching dramatically in expectation. However, when the blow never fell, the red-head looked back up, and there was Robin, smile a mile-wide, shaking his head sadly. Soon, the two were filling the night with laughter, mostly at the thought of how little would be left of any rube stupid enough to actually suggest Plan B to the two women in question. It was a really great feeling.

"The bonus round could be K-Y jelly wrestling!"

(SMACK)

* * *

Man, I beginning to **_love_** writing Speedy this way, he's probably going to end up featuring in one way or another in a lot of my work, but I digress, this is about **_now_**. 

Why not two?—I ask myself as I sit and edit this enormous piece. Clearly the initial rescue scene is distinct and separate from the raid at the rave scene, and through a simple manipulation of Word, I could have had two chapters rather than one. The answer: that **_wasn't_** how I thought it up. When writing this, I considered the two portions intimately linked and united for some reason that eludes me right now, and so, hey, what the hell. Less reviewing for you readers to do, though it may be a little hard on the eyes. (Shut up, I read it twice through in a row to edit right after finishing the last scene, so yours can't hurt as much as mine!)

Fangirl—I'm not sure if anyone actually acts like this, that's why it's called a parody. I thought it was **_hilarious_**, though I hope any level-headed or demure thirteen year old girls out there don't take offence at the stereotype. I was just having a little fun.

Robin gets blasted—I had to think this scene through for quite a long time. Really, with the slurred speech and all, it easily took three times as long as the opening sequence to write. I feel it wound up about as compelling as it could be, even if it's sometimes hard to interpret the intentional misspellings I used to emulate the complex activity of speaking while wasted. The entire idea was, at one point, in need of massive rewrite, because it struck me rather early that there was no way either of the two would ever attend a completely unsupervised rave like this, or that if they got into one, that people would be even mildly comfortable with their presence. I eventually worked around it by instituting the 'they don't usually fight regular old criminals' paradigm, and then manipulated the opportunity to screw with some plain old crooks as an excuse and justification for nicking some Jesus juice and getting cotton-mouthed. (such a wonderful world of slang for these things)

Love/Hate—The best kind of friendships can endure constant bickering because the understanding just runs that deep. I figured, as long as I'm writing them as virtual blood-brothers with a history of antics predating the Teen Titans, why not have them be just that kind of buddies? Add the potential of being plastered and you get some truly hilarious, and at times, rather sad and dramatic interaction, particularly Speedy's horny, drunken raving and Robin's exaggerated disdain right at the end.

Solution, **_what_** solution?—yes, well, seeing as how this story is such a blast to write, I figured I'd leave room to extend it for a few extra chapters. Robin didn't get an answer to his problems so much as a course of action that makes sense, and this will hopefully pan out into more awesome romance and angst in the not too distant future. I for one can't wait.

Future—Chapter Four: Man of Her Dreams—considering how much trouble 'Purgatory in Deep Blue' is giving me, **_this_** could well be out before **_that_**. The idea right now is to pause and leap away from the guys' situation and switch to some rather revealing dream sequences the ladies are suffering through during their drugged stasis. If there was ever any doubt about what they were feeling, it won't survive this next chapter. Ahh, I wonder how it'll feel to mix fluffy, romantic dreams with drug-induced nightmares of rather sick proportions? We'll see I guess. --Chapter 5-- probably whereI pick up the guys' story and tie up the many bits of loose end and foreshadown I've strewn so carelessly about.

Review—you **_know_** you **_want_** to.


	4. Man of her Dreams

This story has some mature content, but it's meant to be entertaining rather than offensive (I swear its simultaneously funny and mildly disturbing (in the good way)), and I'm not a lemon writer, so I don't be scared off, or you'll miss a great fic. On the other hand, if this all just bothers you too much, feel free to skip over it and wait for next chapter. I aim to entertain, and sex, or even the thought of sex, is just really entertaining to me. Oh well.

DISCLAIMER:

This story contains references to physical intimacy, sexual desire, and sexual arousal. Even though I don't particularly think its something the average 13 plus year old person wouldn't be able to handle, I'm obligated to rate this chapter M for mature. If you think for even one moment that the idea of single teenagers expressing sexual thoughts or desires for one another might cause you some kind of offence, then shove off, and don't bother telling me about how disgusting you find me. That said, this isn't exactly graphic stuff, so really, I don't know who would complain. Just covering my ass here people.

This is definitely 'Blue' Romance—you have been warned, and warned again. At the same time, no one gets past intimate groping, and the average American youth has done more than that to his or herself by 13, so once again, I never really understood the whole rating system. Also worth warning, there is an extended scene that a stickler might label 'lesbianism' (or 'yuri' to use the popular Japanese term), but I don't really consider it thus… and there's really a few rather good one-liners about it… but I digress, read and see for yourself. On a final note, though it is overshadowed by the sexuality, there is some rather graphic violence too, just so I don't leave anything out you see.

Chapter Four: Man of her Dreams

It's a funny thing, when a person enters stasis freeze. Despite its misleading name, it is not a process that cools down the body at all. Rather, it uses special magnetic and electrostatic energy fields to cause all metabolic processes to slow down so much that seconds of life for the suspended person become weeks in the real world, removing the need for catheters and bedpans and such other nasty things during time-sensitive medical processes like waiting for organ transplants or, as in this case, complex medicinal synthesis. What this little tidbit boils down to is that, while the body can be nearly paused by these fields, the mind, the nervous processes, will tend to be only barely restrained. In other words, the sleepers **_dream_**.

The dreams, the incredible, fanciful, spectacularly realistic dreams, will inevitably dance through the semi-conscious minds of persons whose every other biological activity is in nearly a dead pause. Where the frightening part begins, where people have at times found **_ample_** room for terror, is immediately at the fact that, there is **_no_** **_way_** to wake up from these dreams on one's own. One can **_never_** escape them until one is released from stasis freeze by somebody on the outside. Tales abound of those who once entered stasis, then were simply left there too long, left to the not-at-all tender mercies of their own unbridled subconscious expressions.

Under such ministrations, people become… **_different_**. Something about such unrestrained meandering through the wasteland of the mind's random emissions and abstract descriptions of fears or desires one might not even have consciously known—tends to work an almost mystical alteration on those subjects experiencing them.

Of course, it's hardly desirable for a standardized medical technique to have such drastic side-effects, and so an extra sedative is added to the stasis process to suppress consciousness and create a dreamless slumber, so that the experience from insertion to awakening becomes akin to the blink of an eye. Unfortunately for two young women, the **_automatic_** doctors overseeing their recovery **_automatically_** refused to drug them properly, detecting the much more sinister chemicals already affecting their minds and defaulting to standard procedure under such circumstances—standby.

But who knows… maybe the delusions of a drugged sleep won't be as bad as one's own unaltered dreams. Perhaps there will be some leniency finally granted to two women who have suffered far more than enough. Or maybe it will all become something far, **_far_** worse. My money is on the latter.

—Starfire—

Starfire was in space.

Or at least, it sure **_seemed_** like space. If it **_was_** space, she'd have had to admit that it was a lot darker and more abandoned than the last time she'd been there, not a single planet, star, nebula, or galaxy to be seen in any direction. In fact, there was nothing all, not even the most infinitesimal speck of light, nothing but an endless void.

Moreover… she felt… **_strange_**. Considering how much more the feeling bothered her than the unnatural emptiness of this place, one might understand just **_how_** strange. It wasn't a sensation she was at all familiar with, and though it was currently little more than a muted heat throughout her entire body, she had the strangest idea that it had been, and could yet become, a great deal more intense. Her head was muddled by it, and her pulse seemed hard in her body, tangible in every extremity as a forceful pounding rather than the constant, unnoticeable patter one might expect it to be. Then again, all this was quite readily swept from her mind at the first sound of a single, delicate '**_click_**.'

She turned toward the sound and right away her entire world paradigm had to be rearranged. It was, in fact, the sound of a light flipping on, and as she became able to see something other than black void, her eyes automatically corrected perspective, and there was now quite suddenly a definite form to this place, there was a ground under her feet and a roof over her head, though she could see neither. All of her new input about this strange world, from the height of the ceiling to the existence of the floor, was coming from the light, which turned out to be the glare of a lamp shining down onto a solitary chair and its quiet occupant. Even from behind, she recognized him instantly.

"Robin!" she shouted happily, overjoyed to see something familiar in this odd place of infinite darkness. Though she could not perceive a ground beneath her feet, she ran toward the edge of the light quite without concern, and it turned out that her feet didn't complain in the slightest about there being nothing under them as far as moving her forward was involved. In a moment she was by his side, repeating her call as he seemed to have missed her first one.

"Robin!" she exclaimed anew, her cheer at seeing such a familiar and beloved figure tempered by the increasingly terrifying infinity that surrounded her and her apparently oblivious friend.

"Shh, the movie's starting," his familiar voice spoke faintly, almost dreamily, and he did not turn to face her, instead tossing an annoyed and dismissive wave her way.

"Uhh…?" Starfire's eyes widened in plain confusion, first of all by his odd distance, second of all by his completely nonsensical statement. Could he not see that this place had nothing? Was there some way he could see more than the harsh lamp light glaring down on him and his chair, the circle of which she now stood on the edge of, almost clinging to the minute island of reality in this unsettling, unending void? "Oh… very well Robin…" Starfire found herself whispering, her trusting nature overcoming anything else as she placed her entire faith in Robin as the only sensible thing in this utterly weird place, "The watching of filmed entertainment sounds… nice…"

"Great, great," he muttered in a harried whisper, continuing to effectively ignore Starfire and managing to shock her even further, "Pull up a chair."

"A—a **_chair_**?" she asked absently as her face molded into a mask of numb confusion. More and more her fear was being overcome by bewilderment, Robin's obvious lack of concern about their surroundings making her wonder if this phenomenon of darkness was afflicting her perceptions uniquely. For example, this chair Robin was offering… she couldn't see it. She turned incredibly wide eyes to look around the blackened space for a moment, and Robin answered her question.

"Oh—right, sorry, no more chairs," and he sounded sort of embarrassed, paying her some mind at last, "here, please, just sit next to me."

"…Next to you?" Starfire was beginning to feel like an echo, but she honestly couldn't imagine how she could sit next to a guy in a spindly wood-frame chair. "How shall I fit next to yo—" she started to express this rather distressed concern as she turned back to face him again, no longer able to stand gazing into the inky blackness around them, only for her question to die on her lips.

The chair had transformed.

Rather than the bare-bones amalgamation of kindling Robin had been sitting in when the light came on, there was now a deliciously intimate love-seat, with Robin himself sunk deep into the right side of its plush cushioning. It looked to be about the most comfortable piece of furniture Starfire had ever seen, and her body circled around to the front, even as her mind fizzled out in disgust of ever understanding what was going on here. Was she just tired? Was she already dreaming? Was someone playing a prank on her?

Robin, at least, continued to stare directly forward, and as his nonchalance endured, Starfire continued to doubt her own fears. Instead, she paused for a moment, as though wondering if this new seat would transform if she took her eyes off of it as the last one had, then went ahead and sat down next to Robin. As soon as she sunk into the cushion, the very moment she leaned back into the delightfully giving surface, her every concern evaporated. It **_was_** the most comfortable chair she'd ever been in, and she was now pressed slightly against Robin—a none-too objectionable situation that took the last of her fears and flung them flatly out the window.

"Ooohhh, Robin—this **_chair_**—" she began to chat compulsively in a jangle of nerves and mind-clouding heat as the once growing terror quietly died and she settled into the glorious embrace of the small couch, her leg brushing innocently against Robin's and eliciting a flaring tingle of that strange sensation. Before she could get anything else out, however, Robin once more shushed her, pointing forward distractedly as a new source of light flickered brilliantly into life with an unmistakable clacking noise.

Starfire did not have a terribly comprehensive knowledge of human history, but because of a few old silent comedies Beast Boy and Cyborg had taken her to, she was still able to recognize that sound, especially when it coincided with the appearance of a gigantic rectangle of flickering light perpendicular to the nonexistent floor in front of them. It **_was_** a movie, projecting from nowhere to land on nothing, and for some reason, as it started, Starfire could truly no longer bring herself to worry about any of these mysteries, where she was, **_or_** how she'd gotten here. After all, everything she needed was sitting right next to her, close enough to touch.

"Starfire…" Robin began slowly, just as the movie was warming up, violating his own precept against noise for no apparent reason at all, "do you ever think about… kissing?"

The young woman's face instantly flushed through eight shades of magenta, and she turned her head slowly to the side to look at Robin with bulging eyes. If the surreal nature of this whole experience hadn't already numbed her to shock, and had the chair not been so entrancingly comfortable, she probably would have leapt away from Robin the moment he uttered that fantastically unexpected question. Instead, she sat there, wide green eyes staring unblinkingly at the side of Robin's head as the man watched the movie start, completely oblivious to her discomfort.

"W-why do y-you ask this?" She managed to squeak out eventually, her voice tiny as she dragged her eyes away from Robin and focused them directly forward, her entire body tense just as his was utterly relaxed.

"Oh, no reason," Robin said lazily, apparently paying her only half a mind of attention, "it's just that this is a pretty steamy movie, and the subject came to mind. Watch and see."

That suggestion made, Starfire forced her eyes to begin taking in the view that they'd been staring at uncomprehendingly as her mind skipped over volumes of embarrassment. The scene presented was a field of wildflowers with a background of majestic blue mountains, the dozens of brilliant colors projected to such perfection that the rectangle of light resembled more of a window to another reality than an old-fashioned film, and in moments Starfire's mind was absorbed by the vision, her embarrassment choked away as her attention was funneled totally into the movie.

She was flying over a field, circling round and round a specific spot, a place where a lonely blossoming apple tree sprouted up like a gigantic bouquet out of the brilliantly multi-colored mountainside. The warm springtime sun was beating down gently onto the landscape, and the shadow cast by this tree was the only refuge, as well as the final destination of the camera, which came to a rest on the scene of a picnic held in said shadow. The stars of this movie were immediately recognizable, for one was Robin, and the other was Starfire herself.

With a growing sense of _deja-vu_, Starfire watched the two of them enjoying the gorgeous day, a feast of Terran and Tameranean delicacies spread out between them on a fluffy plaid blanket under the shade. As she continued to observe their merriment where they sat on either side of the blanket, Starfire could not shake the sense of familiarity, until at last, she recognized the scene, a peal of panic flashing through her at the same instant. She'd seen this before… she **_knew_** what was about to happen.

Unable to avert her eyes, Starfire watched in numb, mute, horror as the version of her in the image plucked up a handful of wildflowers and flung them playfully at the image of Robin. He laughed, batting the gently floating projectiles away with ease, and in return, he leapt agilely over their picnic and wrapped her in a delicate embrace, his momentum rolling the both of them out into the sunlight and flowers to the sound of their combined joyful laughter. They rolled to a stop in a patch of tall grass and fantastically fragrant blossoms, Robin just above her, holding himself up on his elbows and knees as his masked eyes gazed down endlessly deep into her own green irises. There was a pause that seemed to stretch out, protracting into a magnificent tension, as though the air around the couple had become electrically charged, a humming current of excitement possessing the both of them. Finally, in a deliciously slow motion, Robin lowered his head down towards hers, her eyes fluttered shut, and they kissed.

"Ohhhh…." Starfire on the couch gasped out weakly, finally wrenching her eyes away from the movie as an unbelievably intense pair of sensations began to dance through her.

On the one side was that heat, that frightening heat that she had finally come to recognize at the same moment that she'd recognized where this movie came from. A dream, a decadent little fantasy she'd been having every so often, was what Robin next to her had projected onto the void, and this sensation of heat pressing roughshod through her body was the same sensation she woke with every morning after tasting that dream's delightful touch.

The apposing sensation was also a heat, and it was the competition of these two burning flames that brought such a pathetic moan to her lips as she averted her eyes from what Robin was showing her. This second heat was the ache of embarrassment, a wash of stinging and prickling fire over her body that sprung up as she realized what Robin now knew. Her most secret fantasy had just been paraded before his eyes, and from comments he'd made, it hadn't been the first time.

The _idea_ of this _alone_, without her ever even **_attempting_** to see his reaction, was enough to make her want to shrivel up and die, the piercing agony of embarrassment giving her no greater desire than to shrink down to a tiny spec and vanish from existence. Anything at all would be better than seeing him shocked, seeing him disgusted, or perhaps worst of all, watching him laugh in contempt at her dream.

It was such a forceful and self-reinforcing sensation that it soon overcame its competing heat, burning her so badly that she found herself curling up into a ball on the seat, wrapping her arms around her legs as she brought them up to her chest and leaned as far away from Robin as possible. She would very much have liked to run away, to loose herself in the inexplicable void that surrounded their island of existence, but she couldn't bring herself to part form the chair's enclosing plush embrace.

"I told you it was some pretty hot stuff," Robin said pleasantly enough, and at the sound Starfire jumped as though pricked. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, such was the heat of the radiant blush that possessed her face, but that didn't seem to slow him down in the slightest. "So… I've just got to ask again… do you ever think about… kissing?"

If anything could have increased her horror, it was this question repeated, and she figured her heart would just about have to pop out of her chest to get beating any faster or harder than it was at this point. She was now officially wound so tightly that she was ready to either explode, or just pull herself apart in a symphony of flailing bits as everything in her yanked on everything else. It was terrible, and it all came to a stupendous head when he made his next move.

When the gloved hand landed on her far shoulder, when Robin's arm wrapped itself around her back, Starfire's whole body flinched once, her heart skipped a beat, and her mind blanked out as utterly as it had ever emptied. There was nothing but the sound of her exhaling slowly, the air wheezing gently out of her lungs as Robin's warm arm rubbed coolly against her fantastically hot skin, his slow embrace pulling her unresisting fetal ball over until she rested fully against his chest, her maroon-blushing face resting on his shoulder just under the curve of his neck. In a flash, there was such a chaotic battle of drives and desires that Starfire was nearly torn in two.

The instant her body pressed against his, the embarrassment, so far ruling the day, was bitch-slapped into submission by that other heat, dropping off the map as that incredible, gooey warmth possessed her mind and body. However, her compulsion toward modesty would not die so easily, and she found herself split between equally intense impulses to either melt like butter on a hotplate, wrap herself around Robin, and just enjoy the glorious, messy heat roiling through her body, or to throw herself off of him, wind up, and punt him into the stratosphere with a bone-snapping left hook for the unbelievable liberties he'd just taken by so brashly drawing her into his embrace. It was a long instant of mind-splitting indecision before she had a revelation, and recognized this embrace for what it was: a tacit acceptance of the fantasy he'd somehow found out about. The joy that shot through her at this thought reinforced the former choice without reservation, leading it to a resounding victory, and she let herself relax onto the fantastic slice of man next to her, her heart overflowing with happiness.

She unfolded slowly, like a blooming flower, her body spreading out in every direction as she surrendered to a heat of delight rather than shame, her expression softening quickly to match as she caved in around Robin's form. Her legs drooped down again until they settled on the couch, one long limb pressing enticingly into his slightly shorter leg. Her arms, which had been clenched around her shins, relaxed back to her sides, her left hand settling into her lap across her body until her fingers touched the inside of her right elbow, her right hand coming to rest on his thigh just above his knee, the contact with the armor of his leggings almost electric. The blush spread steadily down her face and over her chest, coming to her arms and belly, and then eventually moving down her thighs, tracing the progress of the heat's true intensity as it melted out of her belly and face to coat her body. Finally, she let her stiff neck loosen as her shape molded itself into his, the shift allowing her long hair to cascade down his chest in flowing waves. Her eyes phased out to a dreamy blankness as sensation rather than thought overcame her mind, and this was the state she was in when he began to talk again.

"Isn't that nice?" he asked, in a tone that assured her she need not answer. The heat was ruling her mind so much just then, she probably couldn't have answered anyway, and so it was all good as Robin used his free right hand to reach over the side of the couch and fiddle with something. In a moment, they were leaning back, back, back as the love-seat reclined, becoming ever more comfortable and allowing Starfire to get that much closer to Robin.

At this point then they were both staring into the vast emptiness of the relative 'up,' and it was here that the lamp, glaring down so mercilessly all along, faded out into a softly glowing wafer and edged over until it was on Starfire's side of the chair. The light came out from behind her and landed slightly on both of them, but more importantly it got out of their eyes, removing the illusion of a ceiling above them, and Robin took the opportunity to point his right hand up into the sky, even as he pulled her ever closer with his left, pressing his warm body against her steaming-hot skin. At his gesture, the emptiness began to swirl with very faint colors, almost like the hints of colors that will twist before tightly closed eyes. Indeed, the darkness was quite as complete as being blindfolded, and the intimacy that ensued only caused Starfire to heat up that much more. His hand remained in place, serving as a focal point for her eyes as he began to talk.

"Starfire… have you ever wondered what 'sleeping together' refers to—I mean, when a man and a woman do it?" Robin asked, not even the slightest hint of anything but complete openness in his tone. Starfire was shocked by the question, very slightly shocked, as it were, through the veil of fluffy goodness that was padding her brain just then, because it was indeed something she'd wondered about more than a little.

Once, she had viewed a movie 'bearing the seal of 'R'' as she'd put it, and this phrase had been referenced several times in a manner suggesting that it meant something other than what it said, just like so many other strange English expressions, along with vague connections to the term 'sex,' which her translation dictionary related somewhat indistinctly to the mysterious process of having children. Thus, she had asked the very same question Robin had just uttered to no less than Raven, Beast Boy, and Cyborg in turn, and their reactions had been identical: they each turned some odd shade of purple, muttered a confused dismissal, and had gotten the hell away. The reaction had impressed upon her that this was an intensely embarrassing and personal subject, which is where her own mild shock had come from. It was a subject of confusion for her, just as Robin had suspected, and as her shock passed, she managed to find room to squeeze a few cogent words through the magnificent percolating heat cooking her brain and body.

"Well… **_yes_**… I **_have_** wondered about that…" she said dreamily, still staring up at Robin's hand and reveling in the sensation of being so close to him on this godly chair, "I gathered… that it had… something to do… with… **_childbearing_**…" This last word she could not say without blushing again, but considering that her entire body was basically one continual blush now, and considering the way the new rush of blood sent a wave of tingling pleasure through every inch of her, she didn't really mind. The idea of how naughty this all was had settled pleasantly into the fluff of her brain some time ago. "Could you…" and now her voice caught in her throat, embarrassment trying to rally against the overwhelming press of pleasure clouding her mind, "could you tell me… more?"

"I'm afraid I only know as much as you do," he said flatly, and there was an odd tone to it, as though it meant more than what was immediately apparent. She couldn't help but frown in disappointment at this news, having hoped to finally gain some insight into the many odd things she'd witnessed in that fateful movie.

At her sad sound, Robin looked over at her, his eyes landing on her face and body for the first time since she'd met him in this odd place. As he looked at her, his right hand came down from above them to land on the exposed flesh just below the hem of her skirt. She gasped, the feel of his glove on her bare thigh like the touch of an ice cube against her toasty-warm flesh. In the next moment, the shock of cold was replaced by an inexplicably building heat that spread out from the almost nonexistent caress so quickly that she was forced to catch her breath, her mind overloading at how unbelievably indescribable this new feeling was. As her breathing sped uncontrollably, her chest giving great heaves as she struggled for air, Robin's touch began to migrate.

Before she really knew what was going on, the single-finger touch had climbed the outside curve of her hip, reaching her exposed midriff and the deeply flushed skin there. In a few exceedingly slow motions, he stirred her intestines into a tingling inferno of sensation by drawing small circles across her belly, his finger just barely touching her, and yet still causing a reaction unlike anything she'd ever known. She felt like a fever-heat was flashing through every inch of her body, breathing was becoming a distinct effort, and the butterflies in her stomach had been overcome and consumed by an entire flock of bats flitting around within her.

Finally, his hand culminated its upward journey by slowing almost to a stop, crawling its way the last few inches off of her bare stomach and onto the material of her top. Her pounding heart and bellowing lungs each came to a jarring halt as she felt his next touch, a strong palm coming to rest on her left breast, squeezing once, and the feeling—the feeling—well…

"EEEEEE!" she shrieked as the sensation blasted through her mind, and before she realized what she'd done, her right hand had come away from Robin's leg to shield her chest reflexively as her left hand had clamped down on the wrist of his offending digits full-strength and jerked it away, holding it once more in the air.

"H'rek na yelbar c'hock?" (What do you think you're doing?) she screamed in reflexive Tamaranean, her mind still blown by what had just happened. She may not have known much about intimacy, but she knew that was **_not_** an appropriate place to touch without—without—err… **_permission_**.

"I was doing exactly what you wanted," Robin said calmly, not the least bit put off by her scream of protest. Her mind boggled at the unbelievable implications of that statement, and in a snap-reaction mixture of anger and betrayal, her grip tightened quite by accident, going to her absolute maximum, a power known to crumble concrete and put finger indentations in steel bars. Robin didn't even flinch.

"_What—what is going on?_" Starfire begged desperately, the haze of overpowering heat still polluting her brain making it impossible to think clearly as she witnessed Robin's impossible imperviousness to her grip, not to mention the offensively nonchalant way he fondled her when they'd yet to even speak of 'dating' in any serious way. As though in response, the hand in her grip slid through her fingers in a way that was not physically explicable, almost flowing like water through her palm, then advancing to cup her face in a delicate caress that she was too stunned to bat away.

"Don't be afraid Star," Robin said, his voice overflowing with a compassion that struck straight to her abused heart, "I only know as much as you do… I know only what you know… I know **_exactly_** what you want… even better than you do."

With this last comment, the chair flattened out of its own accord, and was suddenly a huge bed, Starfire's eyes darting around to take in the new boundaries, then focusing on Robin right above her where he'd somehow managed to slide out from being partially under her. In a flash of rising panic, she tried to shove him away with all of her considerable strength, only to have it impact uselessly against him. At her continuing struggles, he spoke again.

"There's nothing to be afraid of…" he began ever so gently, a face overflowing with obvious affection gazing down at her with nothing but open love, all the more terrifying for its total innocence, "I want only to give you what you so deeply desire."

"NO!" She screamed, almost sobbing the word, "This is not—not how—it isn't **_real_**! It **_can't_** be real!" she continued to sob the words out, ineffectually banging her fists up against him with blows that would pulverize solid stone. Her screams had even less effect, and in fact, they died out quite suddenly as both his hands moved down to lie gently on her stomach once more.

Starfire had to work for air now, overcome quite suddenly at this doubly-wonderful caress as his palms kneaded ever so gently at her bare stomach, then worked their way slowly upwards. In a moment, they were laying on her breasts, squeezing in a way that drove anything and everything else from her mind quite totally. In this moment of uninterrupted sensation, this stretching eternity of mind-blowing feeling, a… a… **_something_**… deep within her stomach… a something that had been floating like an over-puffed marshmallow in her guts since the moment she'd given into the sensation of Robin's embrace, finally melted at the assault of the electric sensations Robin so carefully elicited from her chest, and the moist, runny remains swirling around within her brought every sensation to an entirely new level.

As tears began to run freely down her cheeks, Robin's eternally loving gaze focused perfectly into her eyes, her world coming apart at the seems, this nightmare played itself to some conclusion Starfire couldn't even imagine. Indeed, it might have been interesting to see how far the dream could carry itself on her limited knowledge and primal desires, and one might have even had the opportunity, if everything hadn't picked right about that moment to dissolve completely. Like water draining from a bathtub, all sensation left Starfire's body, and the scene faded out all at once with her consciousness.

---Reality---

A robotic arm bearing a small hypodermic needled withdrew from the stasis field containing Starfire, its payload delivered directly to her throat to ensure near-instantaneous introduction to what was left of her metabolism. As it locked back into regular position, a nearby computer terminal automatically recorded its actions on a readout screen. It said—

:ALERT 1335: SOLUTION APPLIED. AT EXACTLY 3:45 PST, SUBJECT STARFIRE WAS INJECTED WITH MINIMAL DOSEAGE OF TYPE 4 SEDATIVE TO HALT EXTREME ALPHA-WAVE ACTIVITY AND PITUITARY OVERSTIMULATION. RETURNING TO STANDBY.

After this, for a few minutes, everything was once again as calm and dead-quiet as Robin had left it. Perhaps if the Boy Wonder had had any concept of how badly the stasis fields would malfunction, he would never have left these two women at their mercy, but there was no real use for such speculation at this late date. Both women were locked in for the duration, the robotic doctors waiting for emergency brainwave activity before applying sedatives that both subjects should be under at all times. As I was saying, however, for a few minutes, everything was back to calm and quiet—but only for a few.

:ALERT 1336: DIAGNOSING—read the computer readout suddenly, as a beeping noise began to emanate menacingly from the monitoring devices next to Raven's bed. CONDITION CONFIRMED AS UNUSAL BRAINWAVE ACTIVITY. CURRENLTY NON-CRITCAL. RETURNING TO STANDBY. CONTINUING TO MONITOR.

What the computer could monitor, however, was far short from what any actual doctor would have been able to see with his or her eyes. Raven's body was currently burning with a heatless black flame that consumed every inch of her flesh, licking up out of her clothing as well so that she was utterly enveloped. The flames were wraith, and would not touch or heat anything they flickered at, but they were a hint to the intense occurrences within. Let us watch.

---Raven---

Raven peeled herself slowly off the ground and looked around. And then she continued to look. And then… well… she looked some more. It was **_that_** weird.

The sky above was a infinite swirl of distinct colors, a luscious scarlet and a compassionate violet competing endlessly in a roiling dance that made the eyes water to look at. Dark grey clouds with odd shapes floated languidly through that excited sky, and seven crescent moons stared down, all lined up in a row, slightly eclipsing one another. She looked to the horizon and saw that the boundaries of this place were set by towering, thorny rose bushes, their enormous blossoms having just reached peak bloom, so that their perfect shapes opened invitingly in picture-perfect spirals.

A glance to her right brought into view an enormous patch of orchids, all surrounding a bee hive swarming with busy pollen-gathering insects, the fat, fuzzy workers flying from flower to flower in endless succession, crawling in to suck out the sweet nectar hidden within the folding petals, then moving on again. The hive itself was titanic, and it literally poured out a gentle flow of excess honey down one side as bees made their way in and out.

A glance to her left then and she saw several large birds, many with rather extravagant plumage. Peacocks, in fact, quite a few of them, were languishing in a garden of completely undamaged statues done in the classical style, the human form celebrated in marble a dozen times over as the gaudy birds strutted and preened among them. She frowned slightly when she noticed they were almost exclusively the frilly-tailed males, considering that peacocks mated in female-heavy harems.

Turning around without getting off her knees, she looked behind, and this time she **_knew_** something was off. There was—**_get this_**—a model train set where an electric bullet train made its way around a track that seemed to consist exclusively of tunnels. The train chugged continually in and out of the tunnels as it made its way over the track, riding in and riding out, its shiny, cylindrical surface disappearing and reappearing in steady succession as it clicked along. Finally unable to take it anymore, Raven frowned deeply.

"Oh yeah… this is **_reeeeal_** subtle. Where the hell am I?" she asked the environment, a bitter sting to her tone.

"I thought you'd be able to recognize a piece of your **_own_** **_mind_**," said a strikingly familiar voice in immediate response, and Raven glanced around again, searching for its source.

"Well **_duh_**," she sniped caustically, "the question is **_where_** in my mind? I've never… I've never seen **_this_** part before."

"I'd have to say… that's probably because this part just formed quite spontaneously a few minutes before the sedative wore off," the voice said, gaining a more distinct quality as it went. "It just formed… because **_I_** just formed," and this time the voice came from directly behind Raven, who twirled around in a rush of cloak to spot an instantly recognizable female figure.

"No—but **_you're_**—!" Raven choked out in surprise, only for the woman standing across from her to cut her off.

"You!" Raven's doppelganger, the source of the familiar voice—**_her_** voice—finished Raven's accusation for her, taking the opportunity to walk closer to her stunned mirror-image. "Yes, I am—or at least—**_we_** are. I'm just another little piece of your mind… a simple aspected projection of your emotional fragmentation. It's nice to finally meet you—err—**_me_**."

"But—but—I didn't create you!" Raven protested, knowing quite well that she'd never given an aspect independent manifestation that had such a gawdy, crimson-and-violet swirled cloak, exactly matching the shade of the sky. For that matter, she'd never created this lewdly suggestive excuse for a mental realm, and well, these things just didn't make themselves.

"_Ah con traire_, _ma'petite_" her double stated, wiggling her index finger in admonishment as she got ever closer to Raven, who was too confused by all this to worry about the proximity. "If you recall, you haven't really been in control of yourself for quite a few hours now. In fact, you've been taking orders from outside… if I'm not mistaken."

"What's **_that_** got to do with anything!" Raven snapped, her mind racing to find some explanation for how this disgusting place and this strange, mysterious aspect had come to exist without her explicit orders. "I've been unconscious since Robin—since he—since he left… and no one exactly said 'Raven, create a mental realm containing as many lewd objects of sexual symbolism as you possibly can.'"

"Oh you poor baby…" and quite suddenly the aspect seemed to pity her, floating forward quickly to place her hands on Raven's shoulders in a forcefully compassionate gesture, "you really don't know, do you?"

"Know **_what_**?" Raven bit out, still too ticked to be bothered by the way she had just touched herself.

"Your **_empathy_** dear," the aspect said slowly, as she pulled herself closer to Raven, the two edging together like either side of a reflection, "it's been picking up on ambient emotional noise all by itself. For hours now, your whole mind has been resonating to the only source of emotions in the entire tower… the only one who's been anywhere near you since you two terrified Robin earlier. And well…" the aspect's eyes narrowed, and she gave Raven a look that made the woman's gut twist, "you know there's only **_one_** **_thing_** that's been on **_Starfire's_** mind."

Before Raven could possibly react, the aspect lunged forward, slipping her arms around Raven's back and jerking them together into a heated embrace. Raven gasped, everything finally clicking into place, just too late now as a black force gripped at her blue hooded cloak, unclasped it, and drew it gently off. The next moment, she was squirming determinedly to get away, but this aspect had unbelievable strength, and was able to hold her easily. As if to prove this control, the aspect morphed into shadow for an instant, twisted around her, and was suddenly pressing into Raven's back with her hands gripping at her stomach.

Raven's hands covered hers, pulling at them uselessly for a moment just before she remembered herself and tried to teleport away. When nothing happened, her mind shifted through a haze of panic, and she tried to summon any power at all, reaching for the well of telekinetic force that had never before failed her. There was still nothing, no power, and as real, solid terror began to shoot in icy towers through her chest, she began to struggle almost manically. In a moment, she realized the drug was somehow still inhibiting her, even inside her own mind, though that did nothing to calm her down.

"**_Let me go_**!" she shrieked at her doppelganger, who showed no difficulty at all preventing her escape no matter how wildly she struggled. "I am your progenitor—I command you to release me!"

"Oh **_please_**," the aspect whispered calmly into her ear, and Raven was pierced by the sound, loosing much of her ability to struggle as a rush of tingling overcame her body, calming her spasmodic attempts to escape, "even **_you_** can only control your emotions so far. Tonight, happenstance has given me form, given me **_control_**, and so it's about time you and I had a little heart to heart, dearest."

That stated, her aspect drew Raven's increasingly limp, flushed body even further into the embrace, molding every inch of her form into the identical, cloak-less woman she held, pressing her chest into Raven's back and laying her chin on Raven's shoulder. When she had a really good grip, she began to float, and Raven was forced to lean back into her support as they lifted slightly off the ground. With her hands still gripping the aspect's, Raven was quite completely wrapped up, her own hands doubled up and touching gently but firmly to her stomach, and her own bust squished tightly into her back.

"I get it…" Raven found her voice again quite suddenly as a flash of realization lit her mind, even through the haze the aspect had bespelled her with, "you're… you're…"

"That I am," the aspect finished for her again, whispering into her ear, her hot breath increasing Raven's boneless slump, expanding her inexplicable inability to escape her tormenter with every syllable that washed warmly into her mind. "If you continue the pure-adjective naming system previously used for your emotional aspects… I'd most likely be called… Horny." She let that hang in the air for a moment as her hands began to rub Raven's stomach slowly while she pressed their bodies together, gradually bringing forth a heat and buzzing tingle to the flesh under her leotard, then went on, "Or perhaps… Lascivious would be better. But of course, Horny lacks dignity… and Lascivious is too long… so I think you can just call me…" and suddenly the aspect's hands moved strongly under Raven's, sliding quickly up her body to cup her breasts, "**_Lust_**" and the aspects tongue flicked out with the word to draw quickly and wetly along Raven's earlobe.

Raven wheezed for breath, her whole body jerking harshly against the sudden intense sensations assaulting her from two fronts. It seemed that the fact that the hands which now pressed just under the line of her bust through the elastic leotard were essentially her own was no more a deterrent to extreme, heart-piercing sensation than the similar fact that the tongue flicking so hot, moist, and nimble along the rim of her ear was similarly hers. In the end though, the shock of such a painfully spiking instant of pleasure brought back some of her strength, and she used it to quickly drag Lust's hands back down to her stomach and flinch sharply away from Lust's face on the side where the tongue had trespassed. Her heart pounding a mile a minute, Raven continued to struggle for air as Lust's delicate giggle tickled up at her.

"Hehehehe, I can't believe how much **_fun_** you are dearest," Lust spoke again, moving her head over to rest her chin on Raven's other shoulder, whispering into her other ear, "such a glorious bundle of repression… and yet… balanced by desires so strong… well… they created **_me_** didn't they?"

"What—what do you want?" Raven managed to moan, still coming down from Lust's molestations as the aspect's hands continued to massage her stomach.

"Oh come off of it darling," Lust admonished, "Don't play at being stupid, it doesn't suit you. You know what I am—that I **_am_** 'your' desire. I am nothing more than a manifestation of what **_your _**avarice beholds that has been made independent of your ego. Thus, the question is not, 'what do **_I_** want?' but rather, 'what do **_you_** want?'—or perhaps even, 'what do **_we_** want?"—for that is **_exactly_** what I represent."

"I _don't_ _want_ **_this_**," Raven managed to sound acid past the breathless wheezing that was all she could manage in the face of this attack. When she heard this new protest, Lust giggled again, and the sound percolated through Raven's furious and panic-ridden brain, bringing a new wave of calm that she was helpless to resist.

As Raven slumped back into Lust again, the other raised their right hands together (Raven's was still riding atop hers) up to accost her left breast anew, exacting a piteous whimper from the helpless mystic which in turn drew a delighted hum from her overpowering emotion. To say that the sensation was electric would have been beside the point, because her touch was like nothing Raven had ever felt. Far and beyond stimulating, it was as though Lust's fingers passed straight through her leotard and danced across her bare nerve endings, forcing a gut-wrenching pulse of fire into her body and causing the flesh under those fingers to tense and erect with a rush of blood.

"What, was this what you didn't want?" Lust asked cruelly, fully aware of combined pleasure and disgust she was eliciting in Raven, "or perhaps it was **_this_**?" and Lust bent her head down and began to suck lovingly on Raven's neck. With this last sensation, Raven squealed like she'd been stung, hopelessly attempting to twist away from her own hot lips as her neck was wantonly tasted by this out of control feeling she was ruled by. As her own tongue ran across the veins and corded muscle just beneath the pale flesh of her delicate neck, Raven's mind was whitewashed of all thought, flashes of light popped continually behind her eyes, blanking out her vision in fitful bursts, and her heart crashed in her chest in an adrenaline-fueled violation of any natural rhythm.

"No!" she shouted, her disgust finally overpowering the sensations, "Stop! I'm **_not_**… I'm not… I'm…" her protests grew more and more feeble following the initial outburst as the sensation from her neck and bust combined somewhere in her lower stomach and started to melt her core, heating her entire body from there, causing her to break out in a hard sweat. Still, she jerked weakly against Lust's grip, and so Lust finally let off, dragging her lips up Raven's neck until she could whisper into her ear once more.

"Ohh honey… I **_know_** that feels good… because I can feel it **_too_**… but still you resist?" Lust didn't actually sound that confused. "I know I'm bothering you… you never were at all attracted to other women… but you must understand Raven…" and this time the pause was such so that she could pull her head over to Raven's other ear, giving it a tiny, wet nibble that caused Raven to gasp anew before whispering again, "this isn't lesbianism…" and her voice reached a peak of husky, heated depth, "It's **_masturbation_**."

"Stop it!" Raven shouted, "just **_stop_**!" and there was conviction in her tone again, finally making an impression on Lust's playful fondling of theirself. With a final, languishing lick along Raven's ear, sucking the entire lobe into her mouth, and with a lingering touch that crawled up Raven's sides without ever contacting anything truly sensitive, Lust halted her reluctantly accepted ministrations, lowering the two of them back to their feet, but not quite letting Raven out of her hug as she continued to press herself shamelessly into the woman's back.

"You're quite right Raven, it's time to stop my fun… for now… because there is a serious matter we have to discuss," Lust spoke to Raven, who was wavering on her feet, just before she fell quite limply into Lust's arms. The aspect was then holding up her creator, the woman quite unable to stand as the gooeyness in her stomach persisted, even without Lust's active efforts. "Good idea—we should lie down," Lust said, as though Raven's helplessly wobbly legs had been some active proposal of hers.

With that statement, the environment around them began to alter, the plain ground growing upward beneath them until an enormous, quadruple king-size rectangle had formed, hefting them upward as it went. Easily twenty feet by thirty feet, the rectangle softened, and from nowhere its plain surface differentiated into silk throw-pillows, a sheet of the deepest crimson underlying them, all on a fantastically firm, fluffy mattress.

When it had fully formed, Lust allowed them both to lower to their knees, then collapse fully onto the bed, her form still immovably linked to Raven's back, even as the original woman was overcome by some kind of swoon. As they settled fully onto the mattress, Lust's swirled color cloak settled over them like a blanket, concealing everything but their identical heads. Lust's head was over Ravens as they lay on their sides, ear to ear, Raven's rather shell-shocked expression a jarring contrast to lust's playful smirk on its identical pale surface.

"Raeee-veeen…?" Lust called playfully into her ear, drawing her head back and blowing a slow breeze over the surface she'd just recently wetted with her saliva. When the other woman shuddered all over again at the intensely delicate sensation, Lust took it as her cue that Raven was sufficiently conscious to hear her.

"That thing we needed to talk about love… it's **_Robin_**, you know?" Lust said seriously, almost out of nowhere, and Raven felt her body stiffen at the mention of his name. It brought to mind a wonderful, **_wonderful_** kiss… her first, actually.

"What—what about Robin?" Raven found herself asking, as she knew to ignore Lust at this point would be to invite a return to 'masturbation.' Lust had been toying with her so far, and Raven had no illusions about how far the aspect would take this dream given provocation.

"Oh, well, it's just, you've been setting me aside for sooo long now darling," Lust continued to use those terms of endearment, expressing what had to be a kind of narcissism Raven hadn't realized she possessed, "and now that I have this chance to get my say… I've got to take it. Self-denial seems so noble, and you've always been one to suffer in silence, but you've been doing yourself, all of **_us_**, so much more harm than you know! My message tonight… the thing I need to say… is to **_command_** you to stop suppressing your feelings for Robin."

"F-f-feelings?" Raven sputtered, squirming under the cloak, trying in vain to turn her shocked gaze on Lust to support her denial, gaining a furious tone, "I don't—I don't—there **_aren't_** any feelings!"

"Oh sweetie," Lust returned to that tone of pity she'd used earlier, her face contorting in sad concern as she expressed her rather condescending sentiments, "you never were any good a lying to yourself."

"I'm **_not_**!" Raven continued to protest, "I don't feel—oh!" her protest was cut off quite suddenly as Lust began to do something strange behind her, moving around just out of her sight in such a way that didn't transmit to her hands, which never stopped gripping around Raven's waist, but which none the less drew her cloak over off of them.

"If you don't feel anything for him…" Lust whispered delicately into her ear, still avoiding Raven's attempts to look back and see what was going on—

"…then you won't mind this one bit," said Robin, from the exact place Lust had been a moment ago.

"**_By Azar_**…" Raven heard herself whimper, as she realized who was now in this bed with her, gripping her gently from behind as she lay helplessly under Lust's immobilizing spell. She truly didn't want to believe it at first, but as she felt the hot breath on her neck, as she recognized that the soft duplicates that had lain under her hands gripping her stomach had transformed into larger, calloused paws, she could find no room in her mind to deny it, and her body went cold and stiff. Still, through the ice, there was that tingling heat pulsing just under the surface, threatening to explode at any instant enormously beyond that which she'd felt so far.

It was now Robin who held her so gently from behind, the bare arms under hers suggesting that he wore little more than what he had when the two had shared that illicit kiss under the delightfully convenient pretence of her conformation to the Joker's mind control drug. As that concept beat its way into her brain, as the fact that it was **_Robin_** only inches from rubbing his mostly bare body against her leotard dug its way slowly into her consciousness, the cold of shock ebbed to be replaced by the ever-expanding wash of warmth from deep in the core of her being. That heat flowed ever more freely from the fluid, melted, oozing center Lust had personally awakened within her. It was with eyes widened by these tantalizing sensations, as well as copious amounts of disbelief at her situation, that Raven witnessed Lust reenter the scene.

"Do you feel that Raven?" Lust asked, as she slowly reappeared on the bed. Like the Cheshire Cat, she materialized bit by bit, her head first, hooded again by that swirled pattern cloak, then the rest of her body in a gradually expanding mesh of existence. She was lying full-out on her belly on the bed, perpendicular to where Raven still lay on her side, long legs bent at the knees and kicking in the air over her back, knocking that crimson and violet cloak to the side. With her chin resting on her folded arms and a smile of obvious, lazy delight gracing her languidly care-free face, she looked very much like a satisfied cat as she stared at the obviously intensely disconcerted Raven, reveling in the confusion and arousal this newest factor was wringing out of her. "That feeling, the one in your stomach, the one spreading out from dear Robin's fingers… that's what you want… what **_we_** want."

"No…" Raven managed to whisper, then the sound became a moan of "Ohhh!" as Robin took the word as his cue to slide up against her back and pull her fully into his arms. The barrier provided by her leotard was negligible, and the instant he pressed against her, she could tell he was wearing nothing above the waist, the rippling muscles of his chest and abdomen easily distinguishable as he wrung a new gasp from her with his silent embrace.

"What was that darling?" Lust asked tauntingly, "I couldn't hear you past the groan of delight. In fact, you're making me **_jealous_**…" and immediately a new shape began to materialize above Lust's languishing form.

Beginning as a dark silhouette, the shape gained color slowly, the utterly black, distinctly human blotch bleeding into a flesh tone that quickly made it recognizable. It was Robin, crouched on all fours above Lust, holding himself up over her lounging sprawl, dressed, Raven realized, with a sinking sensation barely countered by the simultaneous flash of desperate heat, in almost nothing. Much like the Robin that was even now shortening her breaths with the pressure of his sculpted chest into her back and strong hands into her stomach, the Robin hanging over Lust was bare-chested, wearing **_nothing_**, in fact, other than extremely tight, black spandex shorts something like bicycling pants, and his mask. The tiny portion of Raven's mind that was still working properly figured he was clothed by even this much only because those were the places she'd never actually seen, and was somehow capable of preventing herself from imagining.

"Mmmm… that's better," Lust drawled as she slowly rolled over under the other Robin, her cloak balling up on one side and her hood drawing back off her unnaturally pristine hair as she turned to look up at the boy-toy she'd conjured from nothingness. "It's not fair for me to be the only one getting the second-hand sensations," Lust went on cryptically, and then, as the other Robin pressed down on top of Lust, Raven realized exactly what she meant.

The very moment Robin's weight settled onto Lust's body, Raven felt an inexplicable sensation dance down the front of her own form, even though she was still lying on her side with Robin impressing himself into her back. The phantom caress took her off guard, and she whimpered anew, eyes still taking in her doppelganger as the second Robin bent his head down and exhaled a breathy sigh down her neck. Lust and Raven gasped at the same instant as that hot breeze languished across their throats, and it was this combined sound that clued Raven to the fact that, as Lust had so off-handedly mentioned, they could feel what one another was experiencing.

"Let's face it Raven," Lust managed to speak between harsh breaths as she clenched her eyes against the agonizing pleasure of Robin nuzzling against her neck, "We really, really, want Robin."

"Nehh—" was Raven's muttered gasp as the Robin physically gripping her began to nuzzle her neck on the opposite side from where Lust's was nibbling on hers, doubling the assault. The two of them flushed matching brilliant scarlet hues under these fantastically subtle, arousing ministrations, and so Lust's next words were a little scattered.

"We want him so bad…" came her aspect's hesitant whisper, "we want to taste his flesh and be tasted in turn… we want to feel his hands… to accept his caress… to dive into his embrace and become totally wrapped in him. You can't deny it… we can't resist… we want every little bit of him all to ourselves…"

"**_STOP_**!" Raven shouted, breaking the atmosphere with her shrieking bark, "just **_STOP_**! This isn't **_ME_**! This isn't—I'm not—don't **_do this_** to me!" her voice literally bursting with the force of her disgust, her self-loathing reaching a peek that it had never before even approached. The image that Lust was painting, the wanton, lascivious portrait of a woman out of control, was by and far exactly what Raven detested and reviled. She could not bear to see this side of herself a moment longer, no matter how good it might have felt, and the depth of her conviction shook even Lust from her quiet enjoyment of this nasty little fantasy. But it wasn't the shout that did it… it took a little more than that.

"Oh darling…" Lust spoke softly, shoving the dream-Robin away as she noticed Raven's bitter tears, the slowly running trails of which were now shining in the dusky light of this dream, gently wetting the expansive silken sheets of their bed, "…There's no need to cry… I was just trying to make a point… we don't want to cry over this…"

As if to prove that the torture was at an end, or at least in an attempt to stop her misery, which was bringing her down off her high quite mercilessly, Lust altered the situation. In a flash, Raven and lust were lying across from one another, once again opposed like perfect mirror images, only the coloring of Lust's cloak to differentiate the two as each was gently, almost platonically embraced by her own shade of Robin. Still embarrassingly aroused, still ridden by that disgusting, all-permeating heat, Raven's tears were slow to stem, and Lust took the moment to get back to the meat of the discussion.

"Understand, dearest," Lust spoke softly, her dry eyes staring directly into Raven's moistened pair, "I am you taken out of context. I am your lust empowered by empathic resonance with Starfire's drug-induced heat—somewhere in this mind of ours you realize this, and so I know it too. We both know you aren't any kind of slut… but we also both know that these thoughts exist in you… their presence is where the resonance was able to get its hooks in, and it's time for you to stop ignoring them… before little thoughts and urges like these have another chance to build up, possibly becoming something less understanding than the Lust you see before you right now."

"I—I don't understand—" Raven muttered, as she stymied the last of her panicked tears with a concentrated effort, "why… why did you suddenly…?"

"We're not sure…" Lust obviously knew Raven's mind better than she did herself at this moment, "We think we let up because Starfire cooled down a little. Besides… we **_don't_** want to cry… especially not over Robin."

"What if…" and Raven suddenly deflated spectacularly, despite the Robin-shaped figment of her imagination currently embracing her so tenderly, "what if we… what if **_I_**…" and Raven took a moment to discard the unnecessary plural that her aspect had roped her into using, "don't have a choice? What if I can't bring myself to do that to Starfire? How could I even consider hurting her like that?"

"How could you consider hurting **_yourself_** like that?" Lust asked, her face gone flat as her energy bottomed out, the Robin-figments seeming to fade slightly along with everything else in this place. The snipe cut Raven to her core, it lanced her heart like a poisoned fang, then began to siphon the life out of her, bleeding her of her miserable resignation and leaving her bare in front of her own feelings. Before this instant, before desire intoxicated her heart, giving in to heartbreak and letting Starfire have her way, letting her friend gain the love of that wonderful man, has seemed easy. Now… with her eyes shaded by her own need for the first time… Raven realized that she'd never be able to sit quietly by ever again. Even the thought of not pursuing him was violently taboo—in this instant of revelation, she couldn't imagine just letting Robin walk into Starfire's arms—it was unthinkable!

Finally, Lust's power sputtered and died, everything around Raven went dull and lifeless, and the desire riding through her body was snuffed out. Still lying on her side in the now bland world, staring blankly at Lust's shell, Raven was faced with the terrible, heart-breaking truth of her situation. She was going to have to choose between Starfire and Robin… there was no other way… and after this nightmare… she was relatively certain who would come victoriously off of the scales. The tears were creeping back, her stark misery driving any further consideration of this terrible nightmare she was trapped within utterly from her mind as she became focused on the mind-bending unfairness of it all, but especially as she cursed her own weakness, her inability to overcome what she wanted, to walk away from Robin and spare all but herself the terrible pain this tragedy threatened to dump on the looser.

"OHHH MYYYY!" came a shout from Lust, as a flash of purple and red light lit behind her eyes, completely unexpected, the entire world coming back to life with the sound of it, much like a carnival ride bursting into motion, sound, and color as it is flipped instantly from quietude into activation. It was quite the shock to Raven, who was reeled back from the brink of tears and heartbreak quite forcefully as fearful anxiety became her most immediate concern.

"What!" Raven shouted, when she'd gotten her breath back, more than a little aware that she could once again feel the Robin clone at her back squirming against her and gripping tightly at her stomach, "What the hell is going on now!"

"It looks like Starfire wasn't quite done yet!" Lust squealed, barely able to contain herself as she writhed against the gentle grip of the Robin at her back, "The resonance—it's…!" but she was unable to finish the statement, her body arching back against her Robin as she began to put off a iridescent glow of hottest scarlet and most passionate purple.

"Oh **_Azar_** **_damnit_**!" Raven screamed in a most curious mix of frustration, fear, and… anticipation. She had to flinch away, unable to look at Lust's glowing body even as she realized that things were going to become much worse than they ever were before any moment now. Indeed, no sooner did she get a slight grip on the disorientation of going from heartbreak to adrenaline-rush in the space of a split instant than did the Robin holding her spring into activity.

With a grunt, she grabbed at his hands as one went for her chest and the other streaked south along her leotard, her grip somehow actually halting his advance before he could get to anything sensitive. She was so stunned to be out from under Lust's disabling spell that she didn't notice Robin's next move until he'd already poked a prominent bulge into an area she had **_not_** invited it.

"EEEEEEE!" she let out an embarrassingly girly shriek as she felt that invasion, and she lashed out with her power completely by reflex. A black fist of energy immediately exploded from her back, spearing through the fake Robin's chest and impaling him in a spraying gout of blood. Her eyes widened in cold, numbing terror as she felt the Robin copy go limp and still behind her, and she dared not look back to see what she'd wrought, lest she have to gaze upon a murdered Robin, no matter how intimately positive she was that it was a fake. There was truly no telling what might become of her sanity should she behold such a sight, and so she was very careful to tiptoe around even the concept of what she had just done. Instead, she let her mind funnel in on the fact that she had her power back, and the next moment she was off of the bed and flying away from the bleeding corpse and brilliantly glowing doppelganger on the bed.

Not daring to look back, Raven landed some distance away in the garden of Lust, spotting her cloak and pulling it back on with a flash of her power, mostly to assure herself that she did indeed have her abilities back, but also to get another layer of clothing between herself and the universe after that frightening bit of involuntary intimacy. Next, still without looking back, she reached out her power within this place, this representation of her mind, and searched for some way to escape. She had almost connected to her mind's central area and the gate back to consciousness there when the hands gripped her.

Gasping in shock, Raven was jerked back to the present even as she was jerked to the ground, disembodied hands by the dozen springing from the thin air around her to latch onto any bit of her body they could reach. Four sets of hands on her legs kept her from taking off, another four sets on her arms held her still, and then came a storm of hands to attack different areas… areas less important to motion and… well… I'll bet you can guess. She was able to eradicate this third group with blazing bursts of her power, but the result was that she became so occupied by swatting away groping fingers that she couldn't get away from the gripping hands, nor concentrate enough to teleport. She didn't even notice when the hands began to grow bodies until she was completely surrounded by more than a dozen Robin clones, none of them wearing more than those tight black spandex boxers and the ever-present mask.

"Oh Raven… Ohhhh **_Raven_**…" Lust's voice echoed out from everywhere, much as it had when this nightmare began, "You aren't going to want to miss this. This is going to be… **_delicious_**…"

"Oh no…" was all Raven could say, as, pinned under a mob of Robins, she watched a swirling, glowing portal appear in the sky. There was a flash from the bed, and then a great ball of light that had ostensibly once been Lust blasted off of it and landed squarely on Raven, entering her with and accompanying flash of heat that dove away any other thoughts. She could only watch then as she, Lust within her, and the mob of Robins were dragged down… err… up the rabbit-hole and ever further into this surreal nightmare.

---Reality---

:ALERT 1337: DIAGNOSING… CONFIRMED AS EXTREME ABNORMAL BRAINWAVE ACTIVITY AND PITUITARY STIMULATION. TREATING WITH MINIMAL SEDITIVE DOSEAGE.

As per its silent statement, the computerized doctor activated the Robotic arm between Starfire and Raven's bed, directing it over the bundle of black flames that was Raven's recumbent, stasis-frozen body. It began to arc in with its cure for her extreme nightmares when things exceeded its programming parameters in a huge way.

:CRITICAL ALERT: MAJOR EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTION.

This was what the screen read as the storm of black energy lancing out of Raven like she was an angry thunderhead of obsidian lightning began to cook and blast through the various computers and energy-field generators dotting the stasis room. Like it was drawing the current, the robotic arm with the sedative took a huge hit from the black force and was obliterated into a lump of twisted, smoking metal, removing any hope of curtailing either woman's nightmares in the slightest from here on out.

The black force was not done, however, and in an expanding cloud of destruction, the emotion-driven murderous energy reached its way across the wall to the source of the emotional resonance that had summoned it. Starfire, who's brainwave monitor showed her on another upswing, was soon overshadowed by a cloud of destructive force that licked along the walls, across the ceiling, and over the floor tiles, annihilating everything it touched. Finally, with an unexpectedly feather-gentle motion, it settled into Starfire's immobile head.

:CRITICAL ALERT:CRITICAL ALERT:CRITICAL ALERT: the machine repeated over and over, then finally kicked in its subroutine. :EMERGENCY ACTION 1: EXECUTE… CONTACTING NEAREST LIVE SUPPORT PERSONELL.

By the madly fluctuating energy levels and spasmodic bursts of line motion on Starfire's brainwave monitor, it was doubtful if any amount of live support could stop what was going on at this point.

---Starfire---

"Star? Star, are you listening?" Robin asked, and Starfire jerked in bewilderment, blinking harshly as she stared in confusion at her surroundings.

Though she could hardly have told you when or how she'd gotten there, the young woman was most definitely sitting at an intimately small, round dining table with a luxuriously white tablecloth, all of which sat quite alone on an enormous patio under the clear, starry sky. To one side was a magnificent blue house, and to the other was a powdery moonlit beach with rolling waves splashing rhythmically against its soft, bleached white sands. Once again, she was quite clueless as to where she'd been prior to this moment, and her confusion over it all did not break until she took in the more immediate details of her surroundings.

"Are you okay Star?" Robin asked again as he watched her stare around in pure, stunned muteness, her jaw hanging slightly slack as she saw the details of this place.

First to come to eye was Robin, naturally, but specifically because he was wearing not his usual combat armor and cape, but rather, the most luxuriously tailored suit she'd ever seen. It was done all in white and blue silks, a spectacular cut giving his always stiff and hard body an edge so sharp the look alone could cut an observer, his always messy black hair a perfect contrast. Her eyes lingered on his chest, where the white silk of the shirt under the open jacket clung so tightly to his muscles that it looked to have been poured onto his skin and left to dry, outlining his physique in a way that made her chew her lower lip quite compulsively. With reluctance, her eyes moved on to other oddities of this place, even as Robin continued to give her a concerned look from behind his mask.

Indeed, though at first glance this place looked like a beach house, various out-of-place features told Starfire that there might be more to it than that. For example, she was in no way familiar with beach houses on Earth, but she didn't think too many of them had extensive beds of orchids arranged around a living bee-hive. Nor, for that matter, did she recall many human homes she'd seen holding statuary lounged upon by gaudy-feathered birds (though since she had seen pigeons lounging on part monuments, this was not quite as far-fetched). And finally, the model train set with its many tunnels that wound around the banister on this beach patio just didn't seem like a normal decorative feature. Of course she could have been mistaken, it wasn't her area of experience, and so she allowed her eyes to return to Robin (not at all reluctantly) in the hopes that he might remind her how she'd gotten here.

"Seriously Star, you're acting a little weird," he accused her, not at all hostile, actually growing a smile as he saw her come around to him after her protracted silence. "But then again, I guess I've been feeling a little floaty too, what with this being our first date and all."

"D-d-d-date?" Starfire managed to sound simultaneously mortified and ecstatic as this word was instantly snapped up into her brain. Goodness! What was she going to wear?

A little behind the times, she glanced down at herself, only to sputter as she tried to sigh in relief and gasp in wonder at the same time. She was wearing a dress, but not just any dress, no. This dress looked to have been pulled directly from a New York fashion show, the strapless violet frock cutting low across her bust, then clinging almost magically to every curve of her body as it trailed down to a pleated knee-length skirt. She could feel rather than see the hose she was wearing and the garter a little higher up her thighs, and she let her eyes trail slowly back upward as any fears about what she looked like evaporated. She was left with a very slight, bemused smile as she relaxed into the dream, tuning out the weird environment, focusing quite totally on Robin, even despite the enduring muggy, buzzing fog that pressed in on her mind.

"Uhh… uhh…" Starfire's eyes fell onto Robin, who was watching her in silence and smiling, and the fact that she was dating him finally settled all the way in, tying her tongue so badly it would have silenced her even **_without_** her head already muddled. "So… Robin…"

"No need to talk," He assured her, his smile only growing as he watched her charming, incredibly cute discomfort, any strangeness in her apparently forgotten, if indeed it had ever been noticed. "Please, let's just go ahead and eat. I have a surprise planned for after dinner."

"Dinner?" and indeed, though she'd somehow missed it before, the table was set for two with quite a variety of foods. On her side, the plate was arranged around a large prepared fish she didn't recognize, with a periphery of oysters, some pudding, and oddly (at least to her), a novelty candy sucker in the shape of a dolphin. On Robin's side was a wildly different fare, including a large sausage, a cucumber, some carrots, several regular round lollipops, a banana, and an oddly shaped French-bread. While it struck her as a strange food arrangement, Starfire had yet to be on an Earth date (though this bore little resemblance to the ones on T.V.), and she let it slide.

"So Star, I thought we could feed each other," Robin suggested, rather hurriedly, as though he was trying to rush things forward a little, though toward what Starfire didn't know. "So, if you'll eat my sausage, I'll eat your snapper."

Starfire's face scrunched at this comment, but it was not Robin's words that prompted it, rather it was the strangest sound of laughter echoing through her muddled head. The moment he'd made that perfectly reasonable statement, there had been a kind of giggling that Starfire usually associated with herself and the watching of cheesy daytime romances, specifically when the lovers started to make out. However, the laughter came from neither her, nor Robin, and so she grimaced in confusion, holding a hand to her head as the mugginess was supplanted by a slowly growing headache.

"Ohh, err, rather—" Robin seemed to take Starfire's expression as some form of rejection for his proposal, and he looked rather nervous as he glanced down at the various foods on his plate. "I suppose… I suppose I **_am_** double-jointed…" he went on uncertainly, "So I guess I could eat my **_own_** cucumber. But--!" and he looked up again with a big smile, "I'd still appreciate the chance to lick your dolphin!"

There was the laughter again, immediately as Robin made this second innocuous proposal, and now Starfire was truly concerned. Why was there a voice inside her head that found the idea of consuming dinner to be so funny? Indeed, the laughter would not subside, and Starfire was forced to hold both hands to her head as the pain increased, so much so that Robin noticed.

"Oh… well, sorry about that," Robin treated her pain as though it was from his suggestion once more, quite densely in Starfire's opinion, though she could not seem to form words, or any other kind of sound, through the ache splitting her skull. "I guess we should just skip dinner then!" and Robin didn't sound at all disappointed by this, "We can go right inside to the bedroom—I have everything all set up!"

"Grrr…" Starfire managed to growl quietly, shaking her head emphatically as she tried to dispel the pain and ever-growing laughter from her mind. Robin continued to ignore her agony, though he recognized this as a new refusal quite readily.

"You're **_right_**!" he continued enthusiastically, "why bother with the bedroom when we have an entire moonlit beach right out there? I'll go get a towel and some sea-lice repellent and we can get right at it!"

Starfire had no idea what Robin was talking about, but really, the pain in her head was too great for her to care about that. It was like someone was on the inside of her skull, pounding away, ripping at the sides, desperately trying to get out, even as that strangely familiar voice continued giggle and titter at Robin's odd behavior. When she did not acknowledge him still, he took it as more silent disapproval, and his eyes lit behind his mask.

"Right!" he shouted agreeably, suddenly grabbing the tablecloth and sweeping everything off of the table, leaving behind a sturdy little hardwood trestle that had lain beneath their food. "Why go anywhere at all when we can just get it on here! Come on Star, this is going to be **_great_**!"

With that final, undeniably weird statement, Robin took one long step around the table and grabbed Starfire roughly by the wrist, yanking it away from her head quite harshly. The pain would not stop building, and so Starfire was barely able to spare a thought for what Robin was doing, right up to the point where he lifted her bodily out of her chair and lay her on her back on the table. Like a switch being flipped, the pain ceased quite instantly, leaving her mind stark and cold, and thrusting to the forefront exactly what Robin as doing.

"**_Hey_**!" She snapped out, but by the time she tried to resist with her considerable strength, Robin had leaned down over her, placed his mouth next to her ear, and whispered a long, sweet, nothing directly into her mind. As the delightful nonsense syllables and unintelligible whispering snaked through her brain, all the strength left her limbs, and she lay back limply on the table, her head lolling to the side.

Robin did not hesitate, he took the opportunity to position her with her rear at the edge of the table and spread her legs to either side, forcing the loose pleated skirt of her violet dress to slide lewdly up her thighs. Some of her strength was coming back now, but not fast enough, and she was just barely able to look up into Robin's pleasant, humdrum expression as she felt a questing hand slide up the inside of her right thigh. It quickly trailed up her hose, passed right by her garters, danced along a tiny stretch of naked flesh, and pressed firmly and forcefully directly against her—

"AIIEEEEE!" Starfire screamed bloody murder, her mind twisting and her stomach turning at the horrifying sensation of violation that passed through her in that one terrible moment. Without ever thinking about it, her body instantly launched into a long-trained reflex taught to any warrior fearful of being pinned down by a heavier opponent. In a flash of motion that Robin frankly hadn't been expecting, she drew back her right hand, stuck out her first two fingers from a balled fist, then jammed them directly into Robin's right eye with a spearing motion too fast to see.

"GAAGHAHHAH!" There was a gasping scream, a wash of warm wetness over her fingers, and suddenly she was free of Robin's nauseating grope, the young man flinging himself away from her body in a desperate, completely reflexive attempt to escape the spearing fingernails that had just ruined his eye. "NAHAHHHHH," he bellowed again, his hands clasped to his face as he stumbled away, until he finally tripped over his own feet, dropped to his knees, then keeled over on the hardwood floor of the patio.

"**_WHAT_**--!" Starfire screamed, as she dragged herself off of the table and landed on unsteady feet, stumbling on what she suddenly realized were four-inch stiletto heels, her face twisted in a mask of unbridled rage, blood dripping down her hand, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" Her mind was blown away by what had just happened, and quite suddenly, that mysterious agony returned, piercing her skull anew and scrambling what was left of her senses. As her vision blurred, a tiny voice spoke into her ear, heavy with laughter, and suddenly she knew exactly what to say—"NEVER ON THE FIRST DATE!" as she wound up and kicked him full force, nailing him squarely in the same place he'd just violated upon her.

There was an 'umph' of air escaping his lungs as he slid across the hardwood in a heap, then crashed into the patio's banister railing so hard that he busted the wooden construction clean apart. The model train, which had been chugging its happy way in and out of tunnels along the banister's handrail, passing in and out, in and out, oh so steadily, was knocked to the ground in front of Robin and busted to pieces. Robin wheezed once, whimpered, then puked his guts out over the edge of the patio, allowing a hard peace to settle over the scene.

The agony in her skull satiated for a moment by this violence, prompting uproarious laughter to bounce around the inside of her head, Starfire was able to think about what she'd just done at long last. Breaking into a harsh trembling, she slowly looked down at the red stain glowing sickly-bright on her fingers under the soft moonlight.

"R-R-Robin…?" she asked gently, looking over to the slowly twitching sack of jelly that had once been the man of her dreams. "**_AAAAAEEEEEIIIII_**!" She shrieked the next instant, as the pain exploded through her head greater than ever before, throwing her to her knees and wrenching forth that most blood-curdling scream of agony. Whatever was inside her noggin refused to be contained for a moment longer, and she could feel her skull throbbing, throbbing, each consecutive pulse bringing her that much closer to full-on cranial detonation.

"Ggggaaahhhh—" she moaned out a piteous wail as the flesh on her forehead began to twist and distort under the strain from within her skull. A long moment of this terrible ache, and all the pain came to a sudden stop with the most delightful burst of relief, the strain leaving her in one huge lump that blew out of her forehead and threw her to the floor, its explosive exit leaving her head miraculously intact.

From her new position on the floor, Starfire watched in relief-addled bemusement as the agony from her head became a glowing white sphere. The sphere quickly flew into the sky, flattened and distended into a massive, swirling portal, and belched forth a great mass of… **_something_** onto the open space of the patio. She watched the lump squirm and writhe for a few long seconds as she basked in relief, its soft lines and twitching mass absorbing her attention quite completely. Finally, she began to recover something of her wits, and she recognized the mass for what it was—a great pile of mostly naked Robins all lumped together and all trying desperately to **_not_** be moved. It prompted a small internal query, 'who was Robin holding down?'

Her mind was placed on pause yet again when the lump of Robins picked that moment to explode like a nearly-naked hottie bomb, a flash of black energy busting out from the center and sending Robin sprawling all over the damn place, leaving a trail of beaten Robins in a radiating circle from the epicenter, where a distinctly familiar silhouette stood in grim relief, power crackling and spitting from her skin in great electrical gouts. At last, when Starfire recognized Raven, she knew things were about to get weird, as though this nutty excuse for a date hadn't already passed insanely, horrifyingly surreal from practically the word go. Hell, Starfire was so shell shocked at this point, Raven's sudden shriek of pain and subsequent fit of twitching and jerking barely managed to motivate her to sit up.

"Ohhhh…" Raven moaned, staggering in Starfire's general direction past the minefield of discarded Robins lying all over the patio. Starfire was amazed the woman didn't trip over some expanse of delightfully muscular chest or wonderfully tight abs, but then Raven's spasmodic, unreal thrashing became much more interesting than the army of babes she was navigating through. Below the waist, her body was calm and still, but above that, she was beginning to vibrate faster than could be imagined, her cloak and everything above her hips becoming a shimmering blur as she continued to moan softly in pain. Finally, she stopped with a jerk, halting utterly a few steps away from Starfire and yanking quite pointedly in two opposite directions.

Long past believing her eyes, Starfire still had to do a double take and dropped her jaw clean off her face as Raven leaned away from herself, splitting into a blue and purple/red version of herself all the way down to her hips, her legs still united in a disturbing Siamese twin image. As said, the two Ravens were leaning away from each other, and as they turned back to look at one another, the blue one glowered as the colorful one smiled out a lascivious sneer. The next moment, they gave a great heave away from one another and jerked apart into two separate women.

"Heeheehee," the swirled-color Raven gave a girlish laugh, the same one that had been tormenting Starfire's mind, and immediately Star did not like this version of her friend in the slightest, rightfully identifying her as the reason for this messed up situation, the crazy landscape, and the blood beginning to coagulate under her fingernails. "Ohh but that was a total **_trip_**!" colorful Raven went on, rubbing her hands down her body lewdly as though to make sure she hadn't left any important bits embedded in blue Raven.

"What the hell are you so **_happy_** about?" Blue Raven bit out nastily, also checking herself over, obviously upset by the experience of being squeezed through Starfire's skull then ripped in two. Starfire's mind grasped the particularly vicious edge to that tone and identified this as her true friend, the one she could rely on to explain such an outrageous circumstance as this was becoming, and she was quite suddenly happy enough to cry.

"Oh **_Raven_**, it brings me joy untold to see you!" Starfire shouted as she floated back up to her feet, having quite given up on standing comfortably in the stiletto heels. "Something terrible is going on—I just **_know_** it! I have had the strangest date imaginable, and Robin—I was forced to—well—it was **_terrible_**!" She continued to shout somewhat incoherently as she glided over and grabbed Raven up into a tearful embrace, all of her anxiety about the surreal night breaking out through her eyes and arms as she proceeded to squeeze the life out of Raven, who simply hadn't seen her sneak attack coming.

"Starfire—guh!" Raven managed to gasp out with the breath forcefully squeezed from her lungs, her body struggling fitfully in the woman's grasp, as though it bothered her even more than usual to be bound up in an unbreakably sound grip. "_Need_—_AIR_!" and Starfire managed to take this cue to loosen up a little, even as she held her friend away from the sinisterly colorful doppelganger and army of recumbent, almost nude Robins still inexplicably present in this place.

"Well, I see you have your cuddle-buddy darling!" the other Raven snapped out suggestively, though Starfire thought that a strange way to refer to the comfort gripping her friend granted her, "I guess it's about time I found mine. That **_is_** why I came here after all…"

"Lust, what are you **_up_** **_to_**?" the Raven in Starfire's arms gasped out with her first fresh breath, but the one referred to as Lust was already flashing through the air in a wash of blackest shadow, reappearing suddenly over where Starfire had ejected her Robin to when he'd made the mistake of violating her. "Wait—what are you **_doing_**?"

That was as far as the dark woman got before Raven and Starfire were both forced to stand in stunned, open-mouthed shock while they watched Lust's actions. With a harsh grip, the colorfully clothed Raven clone peeled Robin out of the pile of 'broken wood' and struck him with a flash of her power that lit him with a hot-green energy from head to toe. He was restored instantly, and before either woman could utter a single sound, both gasped hard enough to swallow their own tongues, because Lust hadn't wasted half a second before attaching her face's to Robin's like she was trying to see how far she could get her tongue down his throat.

"RAVEN!" Starfire shrieked, compulsively tightening her grip hard enough to make the other woman's bones crackle and eyes bulge, "_what_ are you _doing_ to **_Robin_**!" No sooner had she gotten out this panicked, wide-eye question then the Robin in Lust's arms began to transform, the green energy blowing away his suit, then his flesh, and finally his very body, revealing Starfire **_herself_** in his place, clothed in her Titan's uniform with her hair streaming wildly about her in the gust of ethereal wind that accompanied the green glow, Lust still doing her damnedest to suck her face off despite the sudden gender realignment.

"**_RAVEN_**!" Starfire shrieked even more fiercely, if that was possible, than she had before. She pried her eyes away from the indisposed photocopies and looked down to the way she was holding her old friend, promptly dumping Raven onto the ground with a forceful fling and giving the woman her first breath of air in a while. "**_What_** are you **_doing_** to **_ME_**?"

Starfire finished her shocked and disgusted question by pointing over to where Lust and other-Starfire were still tongue wrestling with extraordinary gusto. Starfire seemed to consider her question for a moment as Raven lay coughing for air on the ground, then she looked back down her pointing hand herself to see just what was going on. Her mind smacked into a flabbergasting wall of impossibility as she counted the number of Starfires, Ravens, and Robins in this place, then she moved her hand to grip her head, obviously developing a brand new headache.

"It's the **_drug_** Star!" Raven managed to cough out eventually, gathering herself back up to her feet only with great difficulty. "Those two represent its effects on you first and then on me by empathic resonance."

"Drug? Represent? Resonance?" Starfire asked in quick succession, moving her other hand to her head as these disjointed facts pumped her confusion to all-time highs, and Raven was forced to reconsider her approach drastically as she saw how little of this was getting through.

"Don't you remember **_anything_** that happened?" Raven queried, trying to get some groundwork lain down for helping her catch up, even as she looked past her bewildered friend to the ominous glowing overtaking both Lust and the Lust-Starfire that had been masquerading as Robin all this time. They clearly didn't have a whole lot of time here.

"What is there to recall?" Starfire asked in exasperation, shaking her head as the shock from one surreal occurrence after another caught up to her, causing her to loose her footing and plop down to her rear, crumpling her fine dress hopelessly as she landed, quite by accident, squarely on one of the many discarded Robin-toys, who grunted out a harsh breath as her weight caved in his chiseled abs. "The last thing I am certain of," Starfire went on without concern for her new chair, "I was here on my first date with Robin! None of this makes any **_sense_** Raven!"

"**_Listen_** to me!" Raven snapped, feeling the time getting away from them and growing ever more terrified of what was happening to their combined drug-induced horniness over to the side, "There isn't time to explain everything, but you have to understand that none of this is **_real_**! This is a dream of yours Starfire, and by some kind of weird telepathic coincidence, I've been sucked in too! Long story short, everything that's gone bad for you is **_THEIR_** fault, and it's high time we did something about that!"

"Err…" Starfire hesitated for a moment as this explanation battled against her epic confusion, the finer points of this 'being a dream' certainly appealing to her need for an account of so many nearly naked Robin's lying around, though certainly not providing any explanation for why she and Raven were swapping saliva and grinding together most inappropriately just behind where… well… where she and Raven were simultaneously **_not_** doing said disgusting act.

"Come on Star, we have to stop them, or something **_bad_** is going to happen. Are you just going to let them waltz into your dream and screw with you?" Raven appealed one last time, almost desperate to get Starfire going now as the glow from their doppelgangers reached a peek.

"NO!" Starfire finally shouted, her confusion, disgust, and frustration at this situation releasing in a burst of emotion that did not need to understand to be big and powerful. "I will **_not_** be **_screwed_** in my own mind!" She shouted forcefully, quite oblivious to what she'd just screamed, and Raven choked, looked at Starfire's newly determined expression, glowing eyes, and clenched fists, then shook her head sadly and turned on Lust and StarLust.

"Alright you two, time to break it up," Raven opened up, hoping she sounded more collected and confident than she felt right now. When they ignored her, she let spheres of black power form in her hands, then pointed them at the pair before continuing, "Most people get a room for that kind of thing."

"Yes!" Starfire leapt up to support her friend, a starbolt fairly dripping from her fingers and quite evenly leveled at the glowing pair, "if you must insist on using our shapes to carry out your—your—**_debauchery_**," and Raven rolled her eyes at the thought that Starfire considered mere **_kissing_** to be 'debauchery,' not wanting to know how she'd react to the further extremes of amorous affection, "then at least have the decency to do it where no one will have to watch!"

To Raven's great surprise, Lust actually broke her illicit kiss with StarLust, turning her head to glance over at the genuine pair of ladies from under her purple/crimson hood. There was a gleam there that Raven recognized instantly, and her guts dropped like she'd just gone over the edge on a rollercoaster, forcing her to lash out with a blast of black energy the next moment. The beam got within three feet of the pair, then deflected harmlessly off some invisible barrier, and Lust threw her head back in an inaudible laugh as the glow between her and StarLust flashed too bright to look at, then dissipated instantly to almost nothing. When she could see again, the two were gone, replaced by a sphere of violet, crimson, and green energy.

"What the **_grinblar_**?" Starfire asked, lowering her starbolt to look at where she and Raven had been only an instant ago.

"I don't know either, but what I do know is that we **_have_** to take out that sphere before—" Raven was cut off

"EEEK!" Starfire shrieked out slightly as she was gripped around the ankle by one of the long-forgotten Robin clones littering the area. She kicked him in the face with her pointed heel in a reflexive jerk, and he whimpered as he gripped at the fiercely bleeding wound that blossomed across his face, releasing Starfire, who promptly floated into the air away form him and the dozens of suddenly active compatriots rising up on all sides of them.

"Oh **_damnit_**." Raven muttered miserably, as she charged up her powers for the coming fight.

"No—**_Robin_**!" Starfire gasped, staring down at the Robin she'd opened the face of, watching the blood flow freely with a mixture of horror and terror. She seemed to only now realize what she had just done, and this time, with no distracting blast of cranial agony, there was nothing to stop her from fretting quite compulsively over the knowledge that she'd just injured Robin. She floated down closer to him, ignoring the others that were gathering into rings around them, and Raven noticed only now what she was up to.

"Starfire, don't be a fool, these guys **_aren't_** Robin!" She warned, but then she was defending herself, pressing her power into the hardwood planks beneath their feet and yanking them up to use like… well… like discarded 2x4s, laying about among the crowds of rather zombified Robins quite mercilessly, cracking heads and breaking faces. Starfire did not seem to hear her.

"Robin, are you **_alright_**?" she asked, rather blankly due to her panic, her flying form lowering horizontally toward Robin's prone form, both of his hands still clutched over the bleeding gash she'd put in his face. She got within about three feet of him, horrified by the oozing blood pressing out between his clenched fingers, determined to see that he was okay, that he forgave her for striking at him, only to see just how correct Raven was.

The very second she was in reach, the Robin stopped playing possum and reached out with bloody hands to grope her chest, squealing out an animalistic wail as he flapped his tongue at her and shook his head insanely, splashing her with his blood. The sudden move took her off guard, and he got in a truly offensive feel before she wrapped her hands around both of his wrists, broke his hands in her grip with a sickening crackling of bones, and snapped her head forward in a head butt that shattered his teeth and sent blood spraying ever more freely from his face. Incensed beyond words, she screeched out her best Tamaranean war-cry, yanked him up by his powdered wrist bones, and flung him bodily into the nearest group of clones, bowling them all down. She spared a moment to fly into the air and look at the disgusting, bloody handprints on her chest, then landed back to back with Raven, who had switched from wooden planks to pieces of the wooden banister as far as holding back the tide of Robins was concerned.

"You were right Raven, these are **_not_** Robin," Starfire confirmed ominously, as though there had been some kind of doubt, and Raven couldn't really spare any concentration to be exasperated, instead heartened beyond words to have the fierce warrior watching her back. She could hold off these shoddy clones all day, but they were multiplying faster than the eye could follow, and now had the pair completely surrounded. Raven was good, but she didn't have eyes on the back of her head.

"Should we not fly?" Starfire asked, but no sooner had the words left her lips than did the environment begin to change. The tranquil, if rather perverse, beach house scene faded all around them, leaving behind an endless grey floor beneath their feet, and a gigantic ceiling stretching ever-outward just a few feet over their heads.

"What is **_with_** this place?" Starfire mimicked that particular human phrase quite perfectly as she glanced up at the ceiling, only to see that it was a mosaic pattern of Robin in his boxer shorts, chiseled as always and holding a rose in his teeth. She couldn't deny the attractiveness of the sight, but she'd been rather numbed to it in the past little while.

"The dangers of an unrestricted Id Starfire, that's what this is," Raven stated, not deigning to explain, and the comment went right over her friend's head. The endless army of Robin's was closing in all around them then, and Raven had nothing left to throw at them. Starfire charged her power, but held back still, not even the leers twisting Robin's handsome features quite enough to allow her to start detonating starbolts among them, at least not yet. Instead, with a shout of her mantra, Raven enveloped them in a cylindrical shield, its translucent black surface soon coated in endless leering Robin clones.

"Azar no…" Raven muttered, as she strained to hold the shield. All around them, Robin was pressing into the black barrier, some licking its surface lewdly, other making disgusting hand gestures and suggestive motions against its curved expanses. "Star… Starfire… these things are **_not_** Robin," she reconfirmed what Starfire herself had told her, trying to imprint that main fact onto her friend as quickly as possible. "They aren't even actually **_alive_**. This is **_your_** dream, **_your_** mind, only **_you_** have the power to do this. Starfire… it's time to **_Take. Them. Out_**."

"But—" She tried to protest, for a moment still able to see that wonderful man in all of these twisted little copies, then looked down at those handprints on her dress again, remembering why blood still clung crusty and dried to her right hand. "**_Yes_**. You have but to grant me an opening." The icy determination in her voice would have frozen a live flame.

Waiting for her signal, Raven opened a small vertical gap in the shield, and instantly a gaggle of hands were reaching through it to try and grab hold of any part of Starfire they could reach. Instead, as Starfire wound her hands together in a special shape, gathering great swirling gouts of green energy into a massive, intensely hot sphere, the arms were burned away in flash of disintegrating flesh, the sound of the recoiling clones by far drowned out by Starfire's banshee shriek of effort and boundless, indignant fury.

"RRRRRAAAAAHHHHHRRRRR!" She roared her disgust with this nightmarish situation to the universe, an unbelievably wide, solid beam of her power arcing out of her joined palms to stab through the army of Robin clones like a high-powered cutting laser through damp cheese. The beam would simply touch them, evaporate anything it made direct contact with, and leave the scattered bits of charred Robin to fall to the ground, usually on fire. There was never really enough left over to utter any sound of complaint at annihilation, and so Starfire's voice was alone in the enduring, green-lit dance of carnage.

Slowly, Raven clinging right behind her, nearly scorched by the heat coming off her body, the two rotated, the shield protecting their backs as Starfire dragged the solid horizontal column of green death full-circle. The clones never even attempted to flee, disgusting and defiant to the last, many jumping gleefully into the incinerating heat, their flashing destruction piercing through to Starfire's heart where their vile hands had been unable to grip other areas. It was a long, slow torture, and before she was halfway done, her scream was accompanied by the harshest, bitterest tears of her memory, though they could not truly roll down her face at all far before evaporating from her terrifically hot flesh.

As Starfire's wailing shout of fury petered out, so too did the mega-starbolt, its conical arc shrinking until it was naught but a tiny twig of light, then that too dying down to nothing at all. The tall woman immediately crumpled down to her knees, Raven standing back to look a nasty askance at the Robins that stood alive still, all three of whom were making obscene jerking motions as they watched Starfire collapse. Without hesitation, the dark woman inverted her shield, wrapping it around the three remainder Robins and using it to snap their necks. She dumped the lot of them to the ground and knelt next to Starfire, who was whimpering slowly, beyond tears, just trying to get tiny bursts of breath into her lungs now.

"Star I—" Raven began, only for a jerky shake of Starfire's head to smack her into mute standby. It was clear that she was not ready to talk, that she might not be ready to talk for a long time, and so Raven instead looked out over the vast field of ash and charred bits of Robin at the center of which the two of them now crouched. There was an odd arm or leg still smoldering away, but other than that, there was nothing at all around them in this weird place between blank floor and mosaic ceiling, not as far as the eye could see out into the grey void the floor disappeared into. There was no sign of the sphere that had once been their combined lusts.

"I do not believe—" Starfire gasped out, shocking Raven out of her dark contemplations, "I can not—I can not—I just **_killed_** him!" and the last transformed into a mild bawling wail as the tears finally flowed forth. Great sobs wracked her crumpled form, billowing ash clinging to the wetness her skin had finally cooled enough to allow on her face, and Raven dutifully, even eagerly ignored the radiating warmth of her body and wrapped her arms around Starfire's shoulders. Recalling the Robin she'd impaled back in Lust's garden, she recognized more or less exactly how Star felt, and her heart bled for her dear friend, even as a nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispered black contemplations of how much longer they'd considered each other friends when they got out of this nightmare.

**_If_** they got out of this nightmare.

"Robin…" Starfire moaned out, "Oh Robin…" There was a sudden nose from behind them, and Raven snapped around to face it, even as Starfire continued to weep harsh tears into the ash she'd made of her true heartthrob. The noise became louder, and moved slowly around to coming from in front of them, Raven completely unable to locate its source, as though it was an invisible speaker groaning out the indefinable pulse of noise. Finally though, it came to stop, and in a crackling flash of light, the sphere that had once been Lust and StarLust appeared before them again. Before either woman could say anything, it flashed again, pulsed organically, then blinded them with an ever brighter shout of harsh light.

"I hear tell that someone's been desiring me…" came the instantly recognizable voice, and as both women rubbed their eyes clear, Robin came into view once again. It was not the same Robin, not by any stretch of the imagination, and as both women felt their jaws strike the floor, it was Starfire who placed a hand between herself and Raven and shoved the woman to the side. There wasn't much chance of teamwork this time…

CLIFFHANGER! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

No, but seriously folks, I could get a billion, billion, billion flames for this and never regret a single thing. I mean, do you have any concept how spectacularly entertaining it was to write this? No—you don't, really, you couldn't possibly have had as much fun reading it as I had thinking it up, trust me. Oh God. I'm not even kidding, when I started developing the transition from frighteningly intimate to idiotically sexual—my good lord, I thought I was going to loose a finger typing it up, I couldn't get it onto the word file fast enough. That this was the result of me overcoming some rather serious writer's block should explain the rather extreme transition of mood and tone from start to finish, and god, what a finish! The motion from terrifying incidents of irresistible sexual advances to their full ability to combat the encroachment of their respective lusts as the telepathic contact formed—well—I just had a friggen ball writing it, I tell ya. Please, please tell me you like it too. Or hell, don't, I couldn't really care less for anyone else's opinion on this one, it was jus that great to put together. (That's not to say you shouldn't review, I still love to hear from people, even my detractors).

On a second note, when I was first considering to make this a completely serious chapter, a chapter without the oozing and sickeningly twisted ending it wound up with, I felt I needed a little comic relief, so I wrote a rather humorous little self-insertion disclaimer piece. It's gone now, but if you should happen to want a little chuckle, ask for it and I'll send it to you. It's almost as violently twisted as the end I wound up writing, but it is not at all sexual, so there.

Future—Look forward to next chapter, though I doubt seriously I can top this anytime soon, it'll still be great. Resolution to this rather nasty cliffhanger (sorry, but there was nowhere else to break anytime soon) as well as the crossing of the male and female storylines, and a truckload of angst to go with it all. Sooner than two weeks this time, I promise. No title yet—I'm posting this more or less hot off the presses, so I haven't thought that far ahead yet.

Review, please.

KAZZY 103—If you don't give me some way to contact you, I'm gonna go nuts. You can't leave such great reviews and then just deny me the chance to heap thanks upon you. If you don't want to leave your E-mail here, or if you don't have one, you can either send me a private e-mail by my address or just say that you can't or won't e-mail with me and I'll post review responses (reluctantly) on my next chapter.


	5. Knicking the Knack

To my readers both loyal and new---YES! HURRAY! IT'S HERE!

A month. A friggin month. Sorry, I really am, but life and all that—it takes its toll. If you want to hear about it, read these author's notes. If you want to read the story, get on with it already, there aren't any legal disclaimers this time—it doesn't need them. Get ready for a super-long, super-involving, superhero story. It's an action-drama one-two punch to the brain, not to mention a real eye-stinger, I mean, if it's late when you're starting this, you might want to consider waiting—**_seriously_**. Or not.

I had the first half of this chapter pretty well done in the first week, and it would have been more than that if I hadn't gotten so caught up with posting on forums and whatnot. Note that the forum I'm active on is no indication of how this story will end, for those of you who know. Anyway, it would have been done well inside of week two, but week two—oh my god—was not a time for writing. An old flame of mine who moved away after high school came back to town for that week and that week only, and so I had a **_very_** nice time. She really was pretty enough to keep me from having any time at all to write, as we dated most of every day, and… well… our nights were occupied too. What can I say, we were making the most out of the time we had. So that was week two, anyway. Week three saw a little more progress, but was dominated by my return to school. I post this from good old UVA, which I'm attending for my second year. That got in the way of writing in a big way, and now, rounding out week four, here it is, done, complete, and really, really long. I'd say about 1/3 longer than normal, actually. Enjoy, and I hope this'll tide you over for a while, because I'm going to be busy enough in school to widen my posting gaps even without extenuating circumstances like those. Sorry, but that's life.

Chapter 5: Nicking the Knack

"Oh come on, you don't really expect me to believe that?" Robin chided his grinning friend, shoving him playfully as they lounged on the tanker ship's long abandoned main deck, legs hanging off the rusted old guard rails.

"Hey man, the bioscanner does not lie!" Speedy protested his honesty, rubbing his arm where he'd been shoved and then thrusting his miraculous little box over to Robin, offering to let him see for himself. "I **_swear_**—if it **_says_** she's pierced there, then she's **_got_** a piercing there!"

"No… but still… **_there_**?" Robin's incredulity was holding out, his face twisting into a mixture of doubt and distaste as he took a good look at Speedy's bioscanner, which was currently displaying data on a random teenage girl that had wandered out of the rave to puke her guts out and get some fresh air. As said woman lounged drunkenly on the pier's concrete surface, a few of her similarly wasted girlfriends gathered with her for the safety of numbers, the two men glowered somewhat voyeuristically from the shadows of the deck towering over them, Speedy using them as examples for his discourse on the female species.

"Never underestimate how kinky a woman can be," Speedy admonished him jokingly, "besides… it probably makes it easier for her dates to find **_it_** in the dark."

"Oh man," Robin was shaking his head as he looked down the long list of unexpected readings posted on the scanner, "how can you do that though? Isn't that like getting—"

"A stud in your soldier?" Speedy cut him off, grimacing, "yeah, it's **_exactly_** like that. And not just the meat either, it's like piercing the **_tip_**. I've heard of guys doing it too, though I've never even remotely understood **_why_**."

"Yikes… and she's only… what?" Robin glanced at the scanner yet again, "**_seventeen_**? How did she even **_get_** someone to do it?"

"Well, chances are, she didn't ask her mom's permission first!" Speedy quipped, taking back the scanner as Robin shot him a distinctly dirty look. The dirty look reluctantly mutated into an amused grin as Speedy scanned each of the women in turn, and Robin waited patiently for the red-head to finish up and get on with the pointless discussion they'd been having as they came the rest of the way down from their buzz.

The city was at a relative quiet, the fantastic lights and colors of the endlessly stretching skyline almost eerie at this ungodly hour of the morning as even its famous night life began to peter out with the approaching dawn. People had been leaving the party in small groups for a little while now, the casual carousers worn out by either the booze or the incessant over stimulation of sound and light that was the party itself. Robin understood… he'd seen the press of bodies, the almost choking stagnation of the air as it was breathed by far too many people at once, and he'd been damn glad Speedy hadn't had the pure gall and mild idiocy it would have taken to actually **_attend_** that madhouse. They **_probably_** could have passed themselves off as wacky impersonators, but then he'd have had to deal with all those **_people_**.

It wasn't that he didn't **_like_** dealing with people, Robin thought to himself as Speedy continued to work his gadget, sometimes chuckling at the readings he was getting, so much as the fact that people always **_complicated_** the much more **_important_** task of crimefighting he had to get done in his life. He'd come to Jump when the Titans had formed on the agreement that he would lead the team, and so far having the others to help had done a great deal more to advance than to hinder the cause of justice, and so he, as he'd mentioned to Speedy some hours ago in that diner they'd met at, had been enjoying _every** god damn second **_of****it. Even when it was miserable, even when it was**_ torture_**, it was **_still_** the greatest experience of his life.

Admittedly, it was weird living around people his own age, and sometimes a little annoying too, but it was so much more **_interesting_** than moldering in Wane Manor, and it came with so much more **_freedom_** that the annoyance and even the responsibility was easy to swallow in the final evaluation. However… he didn't know if this precept could extend to dating and maintaining a love interest, and as the last of the pure shock of finding out quite unequivocally that he **_was_** loved 'that way' wore off, as he ground the last pattering palpitations of his heart mercilessly under the boot of his reasoning faculties, **_this_** was the bottom line that oozed in a chilling slime through his mind.

If he were to start dating one of the girls… what would that do to the team? If the one he was forced to reject took it as hard as it was looking to be, then giving into his desires might just drive a wedge into their force and break off one of the five friends. If this mess devolved into a battle of petty jealousies, there was no telling **_what_** might happen to their dynamics, to the livability of the tower, or even to their ability to work together against criminals. Robin's greatest fear, even greater than causing either girl so much as a split-second of heartache, was that somehow, his weakness would lead to someone on his team getting hurt, or… **_unspeakably_**… causing a death. He was the leader, and their safety was his **_greatest_** priority… that was the lesson he'd learned from fighting together with them on this team.

It kept him up some nights, after the others went to bed, exhausted from some long battle—it kept him awake and kept his mind racing with thought after dire thought. He'd spend all night long conditioning his body in the gym, trying in vain to drive haunting imaginings of their dead faces from his mind, **_certain_** that only his continual perfect performance would ever keep them safe. Deep down, of course, he **_knew_** it was a sham, knew that the shadow of death could arrive no matter **_how_** well prepared they were, no matter **_how_** sharp he himself was—it had happened to him once in his life already, after all, and so he **_knew_**. This knowledge haunted his soul, and the pain he felt was the terrible price of working together in this business with people one loved as one's own family.

So then… what would be the price of working with a person he allowed himself to love even more dearly that that?

"Oh-ho-hohoho **_GOD_**!" Speedy snapped out suddenly, apparently oblivious to Robin's dire brooding as he toyed with his miraculous little device, apparently having spotted something he felt was decidedly noteworthy. "I mean damn man! If ever you needed a reason to wear a rubber!"

"What the **_hell_** are you talking about **_now_**?" Robin was not amused by the way Speedy was interrupting his deep thoughts. The Boy Wonder was relatively certain that the bowman had never felt even half a moment's concern for anyone's life, even his **_own_**—his mind just didn't **_work_** that way, didn't **_process_** such thoughts. He dealt with the danger by not **_letting_** himself consider the risks, just as Robin **_forced_** himself to know the risks inside and out every moment of his life. The differences there didn't make for great conversation, though it was something that came up and which both of them understood, and so in this instance, Robin didn't bother sharing his thoughts, instead leaning over to check what the marksman was trying to show him. A quick look at the screen showed a readout from the six women immediately below them… a readout saying—

"What?" Robin's face scrunched up in a classic combination of shock and disgust as he realized exactly what Speedy was making reference to when he said 'rubbers.' "That's… that's…"

"Disgusting? Yes, I know," Speedy went on, utterly nonchalant as his friend went through the usual stages of mild nausea. "Pubic lice… a.k.a. 'crabs'—not even a condom will help you there. Then there's the one with the yeast infection—talk about baking some bread in the oven. Blondie there has gonorrhea enough to make number one feel like fire—and with **_that_**, you've rounded out the field pretty dang well. It goes to show what having a little **_too_** **_much_** fun can do."

"Oh…" Robin looked like he was turning a little green again, apparently still not fully recovered from over-boozing, "But wait—" and he saw the screen update with something else as more people began to tumble disoriented from the ship, "what the hell is **_that_**?"

"What?" Speedy pulled the device back, "oh, it just updated. Let's see… 'HPV'… oh… that's… that… **_bleh_**," Speedy trailed off, the easy smile falling from his lips as he stuck out his tongue in distaste. "Human Papilloma Virus," he stated flatly, then his silence dragged on until he was sure Robin had no clue what he was talking about. "**_Genital_** **_warts_** man," he finally spelled it out for his clueless companion, though that still didn't seem to wipe the look of uncomprehending disgust out from under bird boy's mask.

"I've never heard of that before," Robin was unafraid to admit, his disgust becoming a sort of morbid interest as Speedy grew a new, sort of sad smile.

"It's kind of like a combination between herpes and a garden-variety wart," Speedy explained as he took up the little device and began to punch commands into the keypad. "It's virally based so they can't be cured like bacterial infections, and they never quite go away no matter **_how_** you treat them. Here's a picture," and he held up the bioscanner for Robin to examine yet again.

Robin stared at the little picture on the screen, and at first it didn't look like anything at all. Then it looked like—

"It's **_not_** a head of cauliflower," Speedy assured him, perfectly anticipating Robin's first comment. Unnerved by Speedy's insight, Robin turned unsettled eyes back to the picture, following the lines and curves of the odd shape presented with eyes narrowed in concentration. Eventually, his mind was no longer able to protect him from what he was looking at, and the full realization of it hit him all at once.

"EEEYYYYUUUGGGG!" Robin grunted his disgust, face quickly twisting back and away as he was struck by a mountain of sympathetic nausea in one lump blow. His stomach twisted, still upset with him for pouring so much undiluted liquor down his gullet, and he was relatively certain that if his belly had contained anything at all, he would be heaving it up right now. "Ohhhh **_LORD_** that's **_disgusting_**!" he spoke harshly and unnecessarily, breathing deeply to combat the unsettling of his gorge and the image burned into his brain. "How can that guy even **_walk_**?"

"Maybe he's in remission," Speedy said, doing his best not to snigger at Robin's reaction considering how similar it was to his own first exposure to knowledge of the illness, "Or maybe he doesn't know he's got it yet. Poor sod's in for a rough week when they come out the first time."

"You've got **_that_** right," and Robin seemed to be getting his composure back quickly, a lifetime of dead bodies and gory crime scenes giving him a better knack than most for recovering his intestinal equilibrium. "And with that beautiful little memory, I think I'm done for the night," he went on, quite unexpectedly, turning away from the sight of people pouring from the rave and starting to walk toward the end of the ship pointing out to sea.

"But hey—**_wait_**!" Speedy protested after the moment of surprise it took him to realize what Robin had so suddenly decided, "I was just about to start running police records! That's practically the best part—you wouldn't **_believe_** what some of these girls get on their confidential juvenile files!"

"Give me a **_break_** Speedy," Robin obviously wasn't biting, not even bothering to turn around and face his stunned friend, "I just can't get into gross invasion of privacy as a passtime like **_you_** seem to. If I didn't feel like shit, I'd beat your ass and confiscate that damn bioscanner—but as it is, feel free to be as perversely nosy as you **_want_** to be! I have a damn stressful engagement to attend later today, and I'd rather have a little sleep behind me than not when I go to talk things out with those two."

"Aw, you're no fun!" Speedy wasn't really serious anymore, actually following behind Robin, unwilling to stay out here by himself and knowing better than to push his friend any further tonight. He'd noticed, after all, the way the other guy's demeanor had darkened as the romantic aspects of his situation dissolved under the acid touch of the much more immediate survival aspects. Just because he himself was able to blot out any concept of the terrible risks they were taking didn't mean he was oblivious to Robin's deep, deep concerns.

Suddenly, there was the sound of shouting and the screaming of women from behind them down on the dock, and both men turned to the all-too familiar noise with conditioned combat reflexes Pavlov would have been proud to see. There was some kind of disturbance down at the gates, dozens of bouncers and other men locked into furious struggle around the ancient fences. As they watched, the unknown assailants, far outnumbering the gate bouncers and realizing that surprise was no longer an issue, pulled a variety of weapons, the shockingly harsh, flinch-inducing sound and flashing of gunfire saturating the early morning. Men were down, and both young heroes were already dashing along the tanker ship's deck toward the end facing shore.

"Looks like a gang war!" Speedy gasped out with an effort as they both charged full tilt over the ancient ship's surface.

"Probably more of the same rejects we strung up earlier!" Robin confirmed, his mind clearing of extraneous thought as his blood heated in anger at the way these scumbags could just start shooting at each other with so many innocent bystanders around. "They must be here to steal the drug money!"

But wait... the detective's mind that Batman had instilled into Robin rebelled at this simple conclusion, overcoming even his combat high as the obvious problem with that scenario. If they were intentionally trying to rob the place… why did they attack now… hours before the revelry wound out and the cash was amassed to the pushers? There was no time to worry about such things, as the gunshots died out just then, announcing the end of the deadly conflict below, and the two had reached the perfect vantage to do something about it.

No sooner did Robin and Speedy simultaneously take up place to start the assault on the poorly lit concrete pier below, however, than did Robin's whole body jerk one fierce spasm, forcing him back from the edge in a jolt of surprise. Speedy caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and unknocked his ready arrow in concern, his own combat reflexes suddenly derailed by this unexpected falter in his companion. His confusion was not curbed by the sudden string of curses to emanate from Robin, but he managed to remember the situation, and dragged his attention back down to the pier and the small army of heavily armed thugs that had just finished stalking arrogantly past the bloodied bodies of the bouncers who'd dared to deny them entrance.

"Fucking communicator!" Robin spat out in a bitter whisper, gripping at his belt as he backed away and let Speedy cover the pier for a minute. The utterly silent vibro-pulse would tell him quite unfailingly when he was being paged without giving away his position—but it was still an unbelievable shock when he was in his hyper-sensitized pre-battle high. The shock wore thin quickly as he pulled out the T-imprinted device, as he realized with a miserably chilling sense of dread that he'd set it to send anything short of priority one emergency calls directly to his voice-mail after last night's fiasco. Thus it was with a shaking hand and wide eyes that he flipped the comm. unit open, because there were only two sources that could possibly supply priority one emergency calls at this particular moment, and he highly doubted Batman's direct line, perfectly silent the entire time Robin had been a Titan, was suddenly going off now.

That left **_one_** place.

"What the **_hell_** are you doing?" Speedy snapped out in a clipped whisper, not daring to take his eyes off the gangsters, who were fanning out on the docks, brandishing their weapons and shouting at the party-goers who'd been on their way out. To Speedy, it looked almost as though they were searching for something, but he was a little too worried about why his partner wasn't already halfway done kicking their asses to give it too much thought. When there was no answer, Speedy took a quick glance over his shoulder, only to double take immediately when he saw the look of undiluted, pale terror on Robin's face as he stared slack-jawed at his comm. unit. "Are you okay?" he asked immediately, loosing track of the situation on the ground completely with wonder at what could have made **_ROBIN_**, of all people, look like that.

"Nuh…" Robin muttered some unintelligible sound, staring off at infinity for a few long seconds, seemingly in the grip of some all-clouding confusion. As Speedy stared on, too shocked by Robin's expression to remember the task at hand, Robin's confusion finally passed and he stood quickly to his feet, flashing forward to grip Speedy around the biceps with both hands and yank them eye-to-eye. "Tell me you can **_handle_** this yourself," he ordered with the strangest combination of pleading and commanding twisting his tone.

"Err… handle…?—**_what happened_**?" after the briefest brain-numbness, Speedy was snapped back to serious again as the gravity of the situation flushed confusion away. He knew that it had to have been something desperately serious to affect Robin like **_this_**, especially in the face of crime to fight.

"No time—medical emergency—**_handle_** this—**_please_**!" Robin spat out in a broken rush, already turning to dash back the way they had just come, to head back out to the bay edge of the boat and the tower looming shadowy on the horizon beyond the ship's bow.

"Wait!" Speedy caught Robin by the shoulder with a desperate leap, jerking his hasty friend around with a momentum-lurching snatch. Robin was flipped back toward Speedy, an expression of violent protest already plastered on his face, only for Speedy's next words to wipe that crease of dissent immediately away. "**_Smoke_**!" Speedy shouted, "I'll need **_lots_** of smoke!"

Without further comment, Robin reached back under his cape and filled both hands with small pellets from the dispensers there, completely emptying his supply into his two cupped palms. With a twirling lob, he launched the avalanche of pellets over and down onto the pier below, the rain of marble-like spheres clattering in among the assembled innocents and criminals to a chorus of confusion and surprised sounds.

"Thanks!" Speedy said as he drew a fistful of smoke arrows from his quiver and started filling in the important gaps in the explosively hissing clouds that were even now eliciting screams and shouts of shock from the ignorant assembly beneath them, launching the thick, gas-filled tubes faster than the eye could follow. "Now stop **_standing_** there like an idiot and get your ass over to those women **_damnit_**! I won't forgive you if something **_bad_** happens to them!"

Robin didn't have time to consider the obvious taunting that statement held, nor would he have been bothered by Speedy's inappropriate joking if he'd had the presence of mind to notice. Instead of sparing any fraction of a moment for that, he was already sprinting back up the ship's hull, doing his best pace for the seaward bow of this absurdly large freighter. As Speedy had himself noticed, there had been a terrible minute of indecision in Robin between standing to help drive out these gangsters and rushing to the side of the women lying in unknown medical peril back in the Tower, a terrifying schism of responsibility and desire that had sucked the life right out of him for several heart-stopping moments. Had it not been for the saving grace of Speedy's capable presence, Robin didn't even want to consider what decision he'd have made given such a set of epically conflicting priorities.

As it was, the only thing he had to worry about now was how to best get back to their island fortress, and he'd had a plan in mind for that since he'd first taken stock of the ship after waking from his inebriated unconsciousness. The memory sizzled through his brain as his heart fought to supply it with blood during the fierce competition his muscles provided, and the stinging flashes of recollection painted a stark scene of two men under a moonlit sky, the long-past midnight bay looming inky black before them.

He and Speedy had been standing side by side, relieving themselves over the edge of the boat, engaging in the time-honored tradition of competing to see who could project further, when sudden noise below them had forced them both to stymie their flows most unceremoniously. It had been ridiculously embarrassing and uncomfortable, and upon further, extremely irate investigation, the noise was discovered to have come from heavily armed members of the party security staff loading cash onto a high speed watercraft docked along the tanker's waterside dingy access. It was then, as he was drying himself off, that Robin had realized how he was getting home this morning.

All that was through Robin's mind and gone in a flash, just in time for him to spot a deck access door slamming open right in front of him. He didn't hesitate, he just leapt forward, planted his palms into the damp, rubber mat-covered deck he'd been running along and launched himself forward, heels-over-head, into a shattering drop-kick. Both of his feet impacted soundly with someone's face, there was a jarring shock as the forces transferred, and he could feel bone crumbling beneath his heels as the (he now noticed) armed security guard went tumbling down the access stairway, taking the people behind him along for the ride.

Robin flipped back off of the man's face in a flowing motion, slammed the door shut, and slapped a limpet mine over the door's latching mechanism, all in the barest of breathless moments. Before the sound of the fools tumbling down the stairs below could halfway get started, he was already running for the ship's dingy access again, now having covered Speedy's ass from rear assault. He'd reached the enormous ship's midway point, the point where the getaway boat was docked, before the mine was disturbed by an unwitting security guard rushing back up the stairs, and Robin grinned maliciously as he pictured the non-lethal explosion's effect on the buffoon to go along with the hollow **_thwump_** it had sounded out as its motion trigger went off.

That charming image sat in his mind as he glanced down the shadowy edge of the boat and saw exactly what he expected—unidentifiable suggestions of motion on the gangway beneath him. They were cutting out with what cash they could, dumping great bails of it into the ship's lockers, each stack earmarked for one of the various distinct partners who'd invested in sponsoring the party—the new financial cooperation in criminality manifesting itself with sickening efficiency. Well, it was time for Robin to throw a wrench into the works on his way to the ones that really needed him.

Rather than go straight down to the boat, Robin attached a grapnel to the ship's rail and stuck the reel to his belt, then took off down the ship's deck yet again, pulling the cord out behind him. When he reached a distance roughly equal to the ship's height, he locked the cord's length with the slightest flick of his wrist, and then channeled all his momentum into a smooth, twisting leap that launched him gracefully overboard, the line snapping taught and giving him a spectacular arc as he rushed in at the mass of armed men crowded into the shadows of the shabby, unstable gangway sprouting from the freighter's side.

His entry was a rush of incredible motion punctuated by the boot he planted into the first head he was able to pick out of the shadows, and the jarring **_wham _**of impact that involved was the herald's trumpet announcing his presence to the guards. The unfortunate bastard who'd just had intimate oral relations with Robin's steel-shod boot was punted off into the water as Robin used the peg of stability to flip himself around while the rest of his momentum carried him past the bewildered guards and up the side of the ship again. By the time he'd come to a brief pause, seeming to hang in the air as his momentum exhausted itself, their guns were spreading a cloud of blazing hot flack randomly into the shadows, and it was a definite credit to their training that they reacted so fast. Unfortunately for them, as the sizzling red laser bolts from their cutting-edge firearms lit up the darkness, the random shots did more to light up their locations than offer him any kind of harm.

The sound of his birdarangs flying was barely audible over the hiss of laser-bolts, but the sudden utter silence that fell when their guns were simultaneously sliced to bits was quite clearly pierced by the sounds of their cursing and shouts of surprise. Robin was on his way back down to the gangway again by this point, and now he freed both hands and drew his tonfa batons from their holsters in the back of his costume under the cape. He was fully horizontal now, running along the hull of the freighter with the guide wire holding him up, and this placed the now disarmed guards perpendicular to him just 'above' his head. Robin reached 'up' with both batons and started laying about among heads and arms indiscriminately as he 'ran' by at high speed, conducting a symphony of pain with each thick metal rod, breaking bones and busting teeth with wild abandon in his rush to resolve the conflict as quickly as he possibly could.

When he passed the entire crowd, most of them crumbling into unconscious or moaning heaps in his wake, he reached back and smacked the release for his grapnel, leaping off the side of the boat to land in a twisting flip on the rickety gangway, shaking the entire aluminum structure fiercely as he faced down the last three men still standing. His tonfas clutched firmly along his arms with only the short blocking lengths sticking out past his grip on the handles, he stalked forward like an avenging shadow, the all-choking darkness they'd thought to sneak away under instead becoming greatest ally to the one who'd liberate them of their ill-gotten funds.

Before the first one could start to cower away, Robin struck out with a lash from his right baton, whipping the long end around from being flush with his arm out to full extension, catching the man in the face with a resounding **_crack_** of impact. The sound was similar to a baseball getting slugged out of the park, but Robin didn't stop to appreciate the reference before jamming the short end of his left baton firmly into the man's guts, leaping over him as he crumbled and facing the second man.

This guy had managed to pull out a pistol after his laser gun was totaled, and Robin was just barely able to duck under an ear-shattering explosion as the guy took a pot-shot at his head, retaliating with the same motion he used to dodge as he jammed his right baton (still fully extended) directly into the man's groin with a sickening **_squelch_**. The guy caved like a house of cards as agony squeezed the breath from his lungs in an wash of stinking air across Robin's face, but, annoyed by how terrifyingly close he'd come to dying, Robin went ahead and gave him a full-force whack from his left baton anyway, swinging it out in a snapping blow against the side of the man's head, pressing the motion along until he'd pitched the thug over the gangway railing, nearly toppling the whole structure with the movement.

There was the resounding splash as this deadweight hit the water, and as the aluminum walkway rattled and shook under the twisting forces testing its questionable durability, the last man was already turning to run away. His whimpering gasps and quivering, clumsy steps on the metal were loud in the night as he stumbled over the bodies of his fallen comrades, the dropped bundles of money, and the shattered bits of weaponry that had not been pitched into the sea. He barely had time to turn his back on Robin before the young man leapt forward and lashed out with a straight-baton jab to the man's right kidney, burying the rod deep and dropping him to the ground like a toppling flour sack. He struggled wildly for air as Robin overtook him properly and dug the baton ever-deeper into the soft portion of his lower back.

"Keys. Boat Keys. **_Where_**?" Robin said dangerously, barely whispering as he pressed fiercely into the man's kidney.

"I-I-In the ignition!" he barely managed to scream out past a combination of pain and terror that wrenched tears from his eyes. Robin ground in an extra quarter inch, eliciting a terrible scream, along with, "I **_swear_**!"

"Here's a free tip," Robin began his exiting quip in a deathly chill voice, the compulsion to drive home a lesson here momentarily overcoming his haste, "find a new line of work," and he punctuated that advice by drawing back and twirling both tonfas in spectacular, whistling loops before smashing them down in a crossed scissoring motion that struck the metal to either side of the man's neck with a heart-stopping blast of sound. After all that motion, the bars just barely grazed his neck, a wash of cold metal rolling against the sweat he'd been pouring out in his terror, expunging the thug from consciousness with their chilling touch. Robin turned on his heel and got back on his way the moment he smelled the pungent, warm fluid leaking down the gangway beneath the hapless hired gun.

Within seconds, he'd boarded the boat, thrown off the mooring, swept it for self-destruct explosives and transmitters, removed all of both that he'd found, and powered the vessel out of the harbor at high speed. In the background, screams and explosions announced Speedy's continuing progress, but that was really the last thing on Robin's mind as he threw the boat into full-throttle and started jetting for the lonely rock outcropping with its T shaped occupant standing sentinel over the still city.

--Raven and Starfire--

"Star, Rae, what's with the odd looks?" Robin asked calmly, the self-assured grin fading from his face somewhat as he noticed the way the two were staring at him. Perhaps if he had some earthly concept of the way he looked just then, he might not have been so confused about their expressions.

Robin was dressed for the beach, stripped down to a pair of baggy board shorts in a striking red, yellow, and green motif with his monogram 'R' on the right thigh. His body gleamed as though he'd been waxed and left to sun-dry, a theory supported by his deep tan. The body he worked so hard to train was thus shown off in all its glory, muscles gathered in rippling bunches that crowded on his abdomen and trailed up and down his arms and back, their bulk limited only by the three or four years of filling out he had left to do before he reached his final adult size. His hair had gone from spiky to merely scraggly, as though he'd been swimming around, and the effect was almost as charming as that of the pale pooka-shell necklace contrasting with his golden flesh.

"Uhhh, heh heh…" Starfire was having a hard time forming words—understandable when one considered that she couldn't get her mouth to stop watering any more than she could get her legs to stop trembling. She simply continued to stare at Robin with gigantic stars in her bulging eyes, drinking in the sight of his unselfconscious resplendence.

"Gerrr—we… umm… wanted to… talk to you…?" Raven was a little quicker to get her tongue back under control, though she found herself no more able to peel herself from her knees than Starfire. The two of them together had been collapsed on the ground, kneeling and leaning on one another for support in the endless planar nothingness that they'd been stranded in at the culmination of their mutual nightmare. Robin had arrived, looking like he does, and Star had… well… **_evicted_** Raven from their hug, and that shock is what gave her the presence of mind she now possessed.

For example, she noticed how other things in their environment had changed besides this new, gorgeous slice of dream standing before them, while Starfire obviously hadn't gotten past this initial, impressive point yet. It turned out that they were, as suggested by Robin's attire, at a beach… **_again_**. The three of them were on what looked, for all intents and purposes, exactly like the crystal blue ocean-front of some far-flung tropical island. There was no civilization to be seen by a quick glance around the area, and the solid jungle behind them was far less inviting than the lavishly clear waters lying calmly before them in front of a distant coral reef.

"Well, here I am then," Robin answered amicably, regaining his rakish grin as he relaxed on his feet, sliding into a more comfortable position in an almost imperceptible motion that still managed to steal the breath from both women. "I heard you two wanted me," he went on, ignoring their newly glazed expressions as he glanced absently out at the sparkling island bay, "and so I rushed right over from the surf side of the island. Now, what did you need me **_for_**?"

"Muh… muh… muh…" Starfire was still at an utter loss for words, and Raven glanced at her this time, simultaneously disgusted by and unreasoningly jealous of her blatant attraction to Robin. When she actually got a look at Starfire, she had to do a double-take.

Starfire was no longer wearing her stylish dress. Nor, for that matter, was she smeared with blood and flesh-turned ash. She, like their environment, had transformed, and she matched their surroundings just as enticingly as Robin. She was wearing a string-bikini of a vibrant purple fabric that, through a tough opacity and just the right cut, managed to be incredibly revealing without being the slightest bit slutty-looking. The bottom was accentuated by a purple and white floral-patterned sarong, and, kneeling in the sand, she looked like a page out of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition… only… y'know… **_tasteful_**.

By impulse, Raven looked down at herself the moment she recovered from her shock over Starfire, and her eyes nearly fell out of her head. Adorning her now was a swimsuit she wouldn't have donned in a million years, much less purchased, taken off the rack, or even given a second look in the store. It was one-piece only by virtue of the fact that the cut-out areas didn't **_completely_** separate the top from the bottom, as the final product still revealed far more than it concealed where her pale, almost ghostly flesh was concerned. The deep blue material of the swimsuit was flecked with twisting crimson patterns, at least in those small strips of fabric it actually consisted of, and left revealed by its absences were her entire smooth stomach and back. Somehow it still managed to cling seamlessly to her flesh, no matter how she moved, as though it were painted on.

"Guys?" Robin asked, concerned by the long silence. He turned back to look at the two women again, now sporting an expression of calm curiosity that drew a slow sigh from each. The sun was glaring down at him from just above and behind, giving him a halo glow that brought a shining life to his bronzed skin, the sight of which made even Raven quite forget what she was supposed to be doing. "**_Seriously_**, what did you need?"

"How did we get to this wonderful place?" Starfire asked dreamily, her huge green eyes sparkling in a way that very much reminded of Robin's glowing skin.

"What? Are you **_okay_**?" Robin was seriously concerned now, apparently amazed by Starfire's question. "I mean, why would you ask me **_that_**?"

"She—uh—had a little too much sun!" Raven hazarded a random excuse as soon as she could, embarrassed for Starfire even if Star herself was too floaty to notice what a fool she sounded like. The switch from jealous to protective hit Raven like a slap in the face, and it didn't exactly allow for brilliant commentary on her part.

"Raven… Starfire is **_Tamaranean_**." Robin stated simply, giving the both of them a skewed grin, "She flies through **_space_**, y'know, without any **_ozone_**—and not even **_that_** is too much sun for her."

"Yes! Right!" Raven was on the defensive now, her face glossing over as she realized just how mortified she was to sound stupid in front of Robin, and simultaneously attempted to convince herself that this guy in front of her **_wasn't_** Robin. "Which is why I **_meant_** to say… she hasn't gotten **_enough_** sun! Fell asleep in the shade—it left her a little light-headed after the long flight here."

"We came here by **_boat_**…" Robin provided, giving her another odd look, raising an eyebrow in serious concern this time. He looked genuinely compassionate, and it was so much **_deeper_** than anything she'd seen from the various clones and shades of Robin they'd encountered so far in this absurd nightmare that it was all she could do to keep her heart from fluttering at that look. This **_clinched_** it for her, as she realized that **_wasn't_** how she reacted to Robin, not even when she allowed herself brief moments of feeling, and she expunged the dazzle he projected with a distinct effort.

"Yes, of course, I meant to say that," Raven dismissed the pleasant fantasy Robin embodied only by dint of the long training she had at controlling herself, but dismiss it she did, turning completely away from him and feeling an incredible release of some invisible pressure the moment she'd fully pried herself from any thought or sight of him. This was **_still_** a dream, and someone was **_still_** screwing with her and her friend. That this someone might just be her and her friend themselves… it was just one more reason to get the hell back to reality. The first step in that direction would be giving Starfire the same wake-up treatment she'd just managed for herself.

A balmy ocean breeze chose that moment to blow gently across the beach, and Raven felt air whispering gently over areas she should NOT have felt air so much as mumbling. She shuddered deeply, remembered what she was wearing, then reevaluated her priorities.

The **_First_** thing she had to do was get something between her skin and the world. To this end, she snatched up an enormous floral-pattern beach towel from an array of beach-going paraphernalia that languished oddly a short distance away. She could feel Robin's eyes examining her with ever-deepening confusion, and this was only slightly more irksome than the fact that she was now draped in huge, pink and green flowers. It sickened her on a very visceral, undeniable level, but she still wrapped the enormous, flowery towel around her body until it was hung around her like her own cloak would be, though it didn't quite reach past her knees. Her self-consciousness curbed, though her self-image aghast at what she must look like done up in pastel flowers, Raven turned back toward Starfire, still scrupulously ignoring Robin, who looked about ready to start becoming forceful with his questioning if something didn't clear up the weirdness soon.

"Are **_you_** feeling all right?" Robin finally asked, allowing his focus to fall completely on Raven as his concern finally overcame his natural respect for her privacy. The question startled her, seeing as it showed him to have a great deal more personality and intellect than she'd expected. She considered this as she shook her head and rather demurely refused to comment, causing him to reluctantly drop the subject, exactly as Robin would have.

In a sense, Raven didn't know how to take this most recent apparition, seeing as how he wasn't absurdly perverted or utterly mindless as all the past figments had been. As far as she could tell, besides his absolutely unnatural… well… **_hotness_**... he was exactly like the **_real_** Robin. That was bad, not the least because it meant Raven no longer had **_any_** clue what Lust was up to, especially not now that she'd been combined with her power source, the raw, undirected desire forced upon Starfire's unprepared body and mind. Raven knew better than to believe Lust was done just because things weren't disgustingly sexual anymore, and this change of tactics on the part of her own desires meant that she had to be even more alert than before, she had to anticipate what was coming next, and so she had to figure out just what in the world had happened so far.

Actually, it was becoming more and more clear to Raven just what had happened to cause this huge mess, and she reviewed as she walked across the warm sands to where Starfire was still kneeling in oblivious delight, gazing dreamily at Robin as he stared in mute dissatisfaction out at the ocean, still perturbed by the strangeness around him. Fate, or blind chance, or whatever one wants to blame for such situations as this, had conspired against her and Starfire, causing the most disturbing conjunction to take place. Starfire had been consumed by arousal, but her idea of lewd behavior was making out. The simple fact was that she didn't have a clue how to respond to urges like what the drug drummed up—she was rather freakishly pure of thought that way—and so they built and built, unsatisfied by her naive antics. Raven, on the other hand, had been having illicit thoughts for years.

Oh, she buried them, she denied them, she forced them down like she stifled every other emotion in her meditative discipline, but they were there, always smoldering just beneath the threshold of feeling. They weren't **_bad_** thoughts, not any worse than the average teenager experienced as hormones became equally as influential as neurons in the reasoning process, but Raven didn't have any time for them, and they made it **_impossible_** to swallow her feelings for Robin, not even **_considering_** the trouble they'd given her with that scum Malchior, and so she kept them under her thumb. With Raven unable to restrain her empathic telepathy, Starfire's frustrated lust had been sucked right into her mind, where it found a resonating, twin emotion waiting for it—one with teeth.

Starfire provided the force, Raven thought to herself as she tried desperately to come up with something she could say that would wipe the goofy grin off of Star's face, and she herself, or at least some small, primal part of her, provided the direction. Raven's own natural lust, energized by Starfire's drug-induced heat, had taken on semi-independent willpower to accost her with the things she didn't want to admit she felt. The message had been delivered, and things had been about to cool down, apparently because Starfire had been cooling down and so Raven's overblown emotion hadn't had anything to draw empathic reinforcement from. And then Starfire's condition had reversed… and things had gone **_nuts_**.

"Hehehehe…" Starfire giggled again, recalling Raven to the situation at hand. The red-head finally seemed to overcome her absent-minded admiration of Robin, though the thought-numbing spell they'd both arrived in this place under was still in full force, and she leapt into a low-level hover without the slightest care in the world. In a way, Raven couldn't blame her for slipping into the dream's embrace so readily, considering the experience they'd just left behind, the nightmare they'd only barely escaped. Raven wound up idly wondering exactly **_where_** in her subconscious desires getting torn to shreds by an army of mindless beasts shaped like her secret heartthrob resided, then dropped the concern, instead watching the way Starfire very slowly and timidly floated up behind Robin. She felt, in that moment of watching Starfire stress over her crush, the most unimaginably despicable combination of contempt for her cowardly display and envy for her proximity to Robin. It **_quite_** distracted her from her little strategy session.

She immediately hated herself, hated to feel that way about her friend, hated that she even had the **_capacity_** to have such treacherous thoughts about the only person who'd ever taken an interest in her life, and she wiped those unworthy contemplations from her mind as she stared on in silence. Starfire had finally gotten up the nerve to break Robin's quiet brooding with a gentle touch on his shoulder, and he turned, the two coming face to face, Robin having to look up as Starfire was still flying.

The moment Robin noticed who it was, a grin split across his face, probably from relief that she was acting normally again, that the smile she fixed on him was lively rather than dreamy or distant, and this time, no matter how hard she tried, Raven couldn't keep the throb of gnawing jealousy down. She wanted that smile pointing at **_her_**, and unlike in the past, she **_couldn't_** be happy for Starfire, couldn't even mitigate her envy with care for her friend's feelings. She **_wanted_** Robin's smile, she **_wanted_** his affections, she **_wanted_** his touch, and it was **_killing_** her that Starfire was getting all three instead of her.

So… what was she going to do about it? Looking over at the smile of her best friend in the world, the one person who really understood her and her problems, who didn't consider her even somewhat creepy, who she'd shared secrets with and whose secrets she herself held in sacred trust… she realized exactly what the answer to that question was.

Nothing.

She saw their lips moving, but did not have to hear the words to know that they were making plans for how to enjoy this sunny paradise together. Forestalling the explosion by counting slowly backward from twenty, Raven let her body meld with shadows, slipping out of what passed for reality here and willing herself away. She wasn't going to be able to hold it in this time, and when it came out, it wasn't going to be quiet.

--Speedy--

As the clouds of smoke finished coating the pier in an impenetrable cloak of opaque fog, Speedy listened for the sounds of choking and coughing that ensured it was having the desired effect. That the innocents were caught in the suffocating cloud was regrettable, but it was a little hard to feel sorry for that bunch of mostly-degenerates. In any case, the discomfort was essential to their safety, as was what he was about to do. With a flick of his finger, he activated the infra-red sensors in his mask, lighting the pier in a crimson hue that brought out the living bodies below him like bright beacons, even through the solid black smoke.

As he drew the first stun arrow out of his quiver, quite slowly as he was still differentiating the guards from the partiers through the low-resolution heat vision, he heard the dull **_thwump_** of a concussive explosion down towards amidships, and he knew Robin had done his part to cover his ass. That meant the first phase could proceed from the utter safety of his sniper's perch, and he let a malicious smile split his face as he slowly drew the first innocuous-looking arrow along his bow, feeling the particular way the high-tensile wire was bending tonight as his muscles strained against the enormous draw weight. He could hear the numerous composite springs and gears working inside his deceptively simple archery device as the arrow finally reached full draw, and his malicious smile quirked just once.

He let loose.

_**Twang, Twang, Twang**_

One shot was followed by two more far quicker than the eye could perceive, the first three shots exploding into boxing-mitts halfway to the target and striking with the force of high-velocity bricks. The first heat signature was battered backward as the first shot broke his wrist and threw the uzi from his limp hand, the second shot blasted him in the side of the head, flinging him away, and the third shot nailed him in the ribs on his way down, shattering bones and driving both air and consciousness from his body. Speedy didn't even wait for the string to stop vibrating, much less for the first target to hit the ground, he just flung his arm through the blur-fast loading motion as he sought out the rest of his targeting itinerary.

**_Twang_**, **_Twang_**, **_thwipthwipthwipthwip_**

The next two stun arrows each broke a face, bearing their targets to the ground with bone-cracking force, eradicating consciousness with the greatest of ease. Spotting his chance of the fly, he switched to the brightly glowing energy arrows, increasing his rate of fire audibly as these lighter projectiles needed much less draw poundage to do their job. The short volley of glowing-tipped projectiles buzzed a murderously fast path through the smoke, cleanly splitting a cheap assault rifle in half as the rest pinned the wielder to one of the pier's many enormous metal mooring posts by his clothing. Really getting into his groove now, Speedy started to get creative.

**_thwipthwipthwipthwipthwipthwip_**, **_Fssshhhh_**, **_Crackle_**, **_Twang, Splash_**

A new volley of energy arrows found homes in the firearms of a group standing in a convenient line as they stumbled through the smoke. With their weapons torn from their unprepared fingers, they panicked and, as a group of blinded, panicked living things will, took off in the same direction. A quickly placed freeze arrow created an ice slick with a hushed whisper of solidifying water-vapor, and the whole line of guys managed to slip as one mass over the pier's edge and into the icy sea, though not quite before Speedy got off yet another stun arrow, blasting a random thug in the back of the head and putting his lights out. Female shrieks of terror from his left drew his infra-vision that way, and he'd formulated another shooting order basically the same instant he finished evaluating the confused mass of red blobs on that side of the peer.

**_Twang, Zing, ZZZAAAPPP, Twang, thwack, GONGGG, Fsssshhhhh_**

A wild, off-the-hip snap shot just barely put one of Speedy's shocker arrows out towards the civilian-occupied side of the pier, where it proceeded to ricochet off of some stacked oil drums and peg a bandit before he could finish blindly brutalizing the gaggle of women he'd stumbled onto in the smog, electrocuting the thug mercilessly and lighting the clouds with yellow flashing in the process. Twirling to the side again, he caught another opportunity, processed the shot, drew, and fired off a stun arrow before he'd even finished turning around, the solid fist nailing some prick in the shoulder and spinning him forcefully face-first into an abandoned packing canister with a harsh clang like a bell tolling. Finally, Speedy was facing the gates again, and he celebrated this fact by pulling an explosive warhead arrow and lobbing it into the air full-blast with a sharp upward angle. A little something for later, if his instincts were right.

No sooner had he let this arrow fly than Speedy heard the sound of antagonists finally mounting the ship's deck somewhere behind him, and he immediately flipped an arrow smartly into his hand and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. Long before it's strongly magnetic tip made contact with the deck, Speedy was already over the railing and on his way down the ship's rusty old hull, a sturdy energy arrow's head dug into the metal and creating a terrible screeching sound as he used the drag to slow his decent. He left a jagged scar in the aged metal, but he seriously doubted anyone would care.

He was on the ground soon enough, fully concealed in a cloud of smog that he was well equipped to work within. Indeed, it was second nature to him to fight under such cover, and he slipped a gas filter mouthpiece between his teeth as he strode confidently into the shrouding smoke. There was the hollering and hacking coughs of still more gangsters he'd yet to punish, and as he walked toward the exit from the docks, he made sure to remedy that deficiency.

With his bow held at around hip level horizontal to the ground, Speedy pulled out a large brace of shocker arrows and held them between his knuckles. As he stalked the quickly dwindling smokescreen, he let these arrows off in a steady flurry. Every shot came off the bow with a whistling velocity that carved its own unique path through the smoke, leaving a twirling streamer of disturbed air in its wake before impacting brilliantly with a hapless target. Dancing electrical auroras leapt from screaming bodies as the arrows impacted in their quick succession, stumbling and confused belligerents quickly becoming slightly roasted deadweight, Speedy's assault reaping through what remained of his opposition effortlessly.

Suddenly, a cool sea breeze swept along the peer, and the already dwindling smoke parted and was carried away on its touch, disintegrating like the morning mist before the sun and revealing the pier in all its carnage. Speedy stood perfectly still amid a scene of destruction that included well over a dozen recumbent gangsters, several shattered weapons, and a feathering of energy arrows sunk in all over the place like rigid weeds jutting from the blank concrete. This was the sight observed by the five or so gangsters who'd been cowering since the smoke screen let loose, making themselves indistinguishable from the innocents surrounding them, now revealed in their gang colors as Speedy switched off his mask's heat vision function. He had no arrows drawn, but as he stared at the bandits cowering motionlessly between him and the exit from the pier, he showed no concern, merely spitting his gas filter into his open hand and fixing them with a contemptuous smirk.

"Well, what are you shit heads **_waiting_** for? RUN!" she shouted at them, bucking forward once in a mocking manner and breaking them from their terror and out into a flat sprint as they tried to escape. They were really making some headway, having gotten all the way out into the parking lot, and Speedy seemed to do nothing in response. Finally though, he pulled out a small device, something like a laser pointer, and painted the middle of the fleeing group with a small red dot. He counted down from three, keeping the laser painted among their fleeing formation.

Suddenly there was an earth-shaking explosion as the arrow Speedy had launched aimlessly into the air finally completed its return trip to the earth, arcing in on a perfect alignment with the laser dot he projected and coming in a streak of motion faster than any eye could follow. The concussive blast blew the five fleeing figures apart, draping their buffeted, unconscious bodies all over the street, ready and waiting for the police. Speedy just ran his hand along the shaft of his bow in a self-satisfied manner, grinning widely as he appreciated the enormity of his own awesomeness.

"Hey Robin Hood!" shouted an angry voice from up on the ship, right around the area Speedy himself had been sniping from only a few moments ago. Speedy didn't turn, though he tilted his head back up that way and glanced over his shoulder at the source of the shout. "Thanks for taking care of that street trash for us!" the voice shouted again, and now Speedy could see that it belonged to one of the party's private security personnel that he'd hear coming up behind him earlier. "Sorry we can't thank you more appropriately for doing our job for us," his voice was dripping with overstated sarcasm, "but our bosses have this problem with vigilante justice. Hell, who am I kidding—they have a problem with justice in general. Bye now!"

The moment Mr. Bigmouth shut his trap, Speedy was painted with half a dozen laser sights, the green dots trailing all over his head and back. The security guards made the mistake of holding off on pumping him full of hot light for several long moments, staying their laser rifles, most likely to savor the concept of victory over one of the masked crimefighters that haunted their existences. Speedy **_didn't_** hesitate, he just pressed a small button on his bow.

The little present he'd left them before descending to the pier made a loud beeping sound as it armed, drawing all of their gazes down to their feet in the critical instant before they could fry the red-headed archer. Most of them had enough time to get out the first phoneme of their curse word of choice before the concussion bomb draped their unconscious forms all over the ship. The dull **_thwump_** of the explosion brought an even bigger smile to Speedy's face as he slowly stretched out his muscles, realizing that with surprise and smoke cover on his side, he'd barely managed to warm up during that one-sided spectacle.

"Okay hero—that's enough of that!" yet another voice, this one actually vaguely familiar, accosted Speedy as he was winding down from the fight. He muttered a few choice vulgarities under his breath, shaking his head in exasperation, when a new voice made him stiffen in shock.

"**_Speedy_** **_Help_**!" shrieked a woman, and now Speedy was paying attention, because despite the intervening hours of drunken debauchery and brawling, that voice was still intimately fixed in his memory. On the pretense of holding a hand to his head in exasperation, Speedy palmed a mirror from his belt and used it to discreetly look back over his shoulder. His cursing became epic, almost baseball coach-esqe, within his own mind as he saw Alicia pinned under the arm of a gangster in a cheap suit, his grimy 9mm pressed firmly to her head.

"Ha, so you recognize the little whore? I **_knew_** we'd find your spandex-wearing ass if we tracked this slut down!" the man's voice was grating, but Speedy wasn't listening to him, he was instead evaluating the image he was able to gather with his mirror. "We're going to teach you why **_no one_**, not even a Teen Titan, messes with the Box-Town Boys!"

"That's right, just keep mouthing off asshole," Speedy whispered to himself, ascertaining that Alicia was bound by nothing other than the scumbag's arm, then noting that the man was backed up by a huge black crony and a small tattooed minion. It occurred to him that these were the three punks they'd busted up in that alley earlier, and he was simultaneously impressed and infuriated by the violent, extreme lengths these filthy crooks had gone through to get back at the crimefighters. He made sure that Jess was not around or in any kind of danger, then made his move before the suit-wearing crook, Don or whatever his friends had called him back in the alley, could even start the next part of his loudmouth, self-important ranting.

In a flourish of motion, Speedy turned, drew, and fired all at once, launching an energy arrow dead on to a target he'd seen only by reflection. He was already in full volley by the time Don reacted to his utterly unexpected strike, pulling the trigger reflexively just in time for the first arrow to strike cleanly through his gun, its shaft sprouting out of the side so suddenly that it might as well have magically appeared there. Not only did the interposed glowing tip shatter the firing mechanism, but the force of the impact drove the gun back and nailed Don in the teeth with it. He was indisposed then as the rest of Speedy's faster-than-the-eye barrage mopped up the other completely surprised thugs.

Nick was taken out immediately with a series of net arrows that wrapped him up three times over, his machine pistol firing uselessly into the ground with a terrible sound of ricochets as his hand gripped the trigger by reflex, but was born down by the force of the multiple nets exploding out from within the series of arrows launched his way. He was dragged to the ground, just barely getting his gun under control before he shot himself up, and by then Speedy had already launched his strike on the third, much larger antagonist.

Bruno, being third, actually had time to brace himself for the attack. As though to prove that he was tougher than the pathetic showing he'd made in the alley, he shrugged off the first stun arrow to hit him in the face, the punching mitt not having quite the same impact now that it lacked the advantages of surprise and point-blank velocity. Ostensibly believing he'd taken Speedy's best shot, the giant pulled his Desert Eagle around, only for it to be gutted from his fingers by three energy arrows. He had enough time to gasp in horror before the freeze arrow iced his feet together, the cattle-prod like shocker arrow electrocuted the fight fright out of him, and the set of two simultaneously-fired stunner arrows blasted him in either shoulder, knocking him backward and felling him like a giant oak.

"YOU **_BASTARD_**!" Don screamed, at the same moment that Alicia finally registered the flurry of arrows impacting all around her in the brief seconds the interchange had taken, breaking into a slow whimpering and collapsing in Don's grip. The big-cheese gangster was brandishing his ruined gun, only to notice once more that it would not fire with the arrow lodged in its mechanism. He was bleeding badly from the teeth, and he was disoriented enough to be thrown off by Alicia's dead weight on his arm. "I'm going to make you **_pay_** for that you little punk!"

"Right…" Speedy said, very slowly knocking another arrow on his bow and starting to walk sedately toward the scar-faced killer and his hostage. "You and what army?" he added sarcastically gesturing with his head to the mass of beaten, electrocuted, and concussed thugs that were strewn all around. It was a sorry sight, especially with the crowd of high and drunk civilians taking this lull in the combat to make a break for the gates stopping to kick and rob several of them, and Don's belligerence transformed almost mystically into fear as he realized just how alone he was here. He immediately dropped the useless gun and used both arms to hold up the girl like some kind of shield.

"You s-s-stay away!" he shouted, his nerve melting like cheap ice cream on a summer's day, the two of them backing away now as Speedy slowly advanced, his bow ready but not pointed, the easy grin fixed on his features. "I swear I'll break her neck! You know I will!"

"You won't do **_shit_**, Don," Speedy assured him confidently. "all of your chances to 'do' something have already been piddled away. I mean, **_Jesus_**, don't you and your stupid friends ever get tired of being walking clichés?" Speedy was winding up into quite the rhetorical mode as Don continued to back away, finally stopping with a panicky jerk as he found himself with his back to the water at the pier's edge.

"**_Stay back damnit!_**" Don screamed, his fear evident, his morale leaking away like the cold sweat running in rivulets down his back. He was showing his true colors, cowering behind the woman to stave off Speedy's wrath, his eyes gone wide in panic, baring his bloody teeth like some kind of feral animal threatened and cornered. Speedy did not stop advancing, merely continuing his tirade as though Don hadn't spoken.

"I mean, it's bad enough that you three are so bound by archetype—a bossy one, a skinny, knifey one, and a bruiser—but the big one actually changed his name to 'Bruno'! … are you **_kidding_** me?"

"BACK OFF!" Don screamed wildly, reaching up to grip Alicia around the neck with both hands. Finally, confronted by this threat, Speedy stopped his advance, not two dozen paces away, though he did not loose his unconcerned stare.

"And beyond that—you guys are just idiots!" Speedy complained in an almost good-natured way. "I mean Christ—I'm standing there, I think I've gotten every bogey down, I even put the _coup de' grace_ on the party security—I'm a friken' **_sitting_** **_duck_**! Presented with this golden opportunity to shoot my bungling ass in the back—what do you dickheads do? You shout at me—get my attention—give away the element of surprise! What the hell were you thinking?"

"S-s-shut up!" Don tried to silence the criticism, but Speedy overran him out of hand.

"And **_then_**," Speedy was just icing the cake at this point, "sacrificing the element of surprise, what do I see when I peek back here but **_all_** **_three_** **_of you_** lined up like milk bottles on a shelf? You three fungal growths were so proud of the hostage you managed to snatch up, it never even **_occurred_** to you to deploy your superior numbers in any kind of intelligent way!"

"I said SHUT UP!" Don somehow managed to sound even crazier, his fear turning to rage as such things often do. The insults were drawing out the small-minded, violent side of him rather than the cowardly, shifty side, just as Speedy intended.

"So lets review," Speedy ignored Don's protests as the nothing they truly were to him, "**_I_** ambush **_you_** outnumbered dozens to one, and I kick ass. **_You_** ambush **_me_** outnumbering me three to one, and get your asses handed to you. Now, some would put that down to a difference in skill, luck, equipment, and psychological preparedness. However, **_I_** think it's because **_I'm_** a stud and **_you_** **_guys_** are a bunch of pencil-dicked wannabees who have to rape women because you prematurely ejaculate whenever a girl is actually interested—a rare occurrence, I'd warrant."

Speedy rattled off the string of insults and hit Don right where it hurt—his ego. The vicious little man seethed in his cheep suit, blood and spittle running down his chin as he snarled, momentarily unable to handle the flash of fury that blew through his mind, cleaning out the last of the terror and drowning it in a red haze. He almost strangled Alicia on the spot, but some small spark of self-preservation had survived the onslaught of fury, and instead he held her particularly close, his eyes blazing, and spoke out from behind her, one single thing on his mind.

"I'd like to see you say that when you aren't hiding behind that fucking bow of yours pretty boy!" Don sneered out, his murderous stare peeking out from behind the girl.

"Big words from a guy hiding behind a teenage girl—but I think I see your point." Speedy actually seemed to be considering his words now, much more than he'd been doing earlier, and he suddenly reached some kind of decision. "Hell, I don't need **_this_** to beat your pansy ass," Speedy hefted his bow demonstratively, "so I'll make a deal with you. I'll drop the weapons, you drop the girl, and we can settle this like **_men_**."

Don hesitated for the briefest moment, then nodded, the fire in his eyes gleaming ever brighter at the opportunity offered. He had no hope in the hostage stalemate he was in, Speedy would brutalize him if he hurt the girl, and he couldn't use the threat to get by him—the kid just wasn't going to budge. At least this gave him the slightest chance—he'd gotten to where he was now by being nastier and more cunning than any other punk around, and the dozens of brawls he'd weathered were attested to by the scars he bore over his pale face.

At his nod, Speedy let the tension off his arrow and slid it ever so slowly behind his back, reversing the long-trained arm motion that he could use to launch arrows at a rate of fire that would make a machine gun wet itself. Almost carelessly, he tossed the bow aside, then held up his hands to indicate their emptiness as obviously as possible.

"Arrows **_too_** smart guy," Don grumbled nastily, tightening his grip on the distraught hostage to punish Speedy's obvious ploy. The arrows were clearly still dangerous, even without the bow.

"Of course," and Speedy made out as though he'd merely forgotten, casually unbuckling his quiver and dumping it a fair distance away, opposite from where he'd tossed the bow as a show of particular good faith. When the clattering of high-tech projectiles died down to nothing, Don smiled murderously, then tossed Alicia aside like a sack of shit, dumping her into the concrete, where she proceeded to crawl to her knees in terror and skitter away, eyes looking back at the battle about to take place.

"I hope you're ready to die kid," Don said, managing to sound menacing, despite the fact that he'd been pretty clearly cowering only a minute or two ago. Speedy was never anything if not amazed by how deluded people could make themselves when it counted.

"Just bring it on limp-dick," Speedy snapped tiredly, crossing his arms in boredom and stretching his neck, utterly contemptuous of Don, even refusing to match the other guy's fighting stance. Don didn't wait any more—he answered Speedy's contempt with a bellow of rage and a headlong charge.

The fight lasted about three seconds.

Three seconds. That was exactly how long it took for Don to close the distance and get the shocker arrow Speedy had slid discreetly down the back of his armor jacket instead of into his quiver jammed into his sternum. Speedy had turned and pulled it with that same lightning-quick draw, never giving Don a chance to so much as notice he'd been bamboozled before he collapsed in a heap of electrified, twitching unconsciousness.

"Fucking **_sucker_**," and Speedy spat on Don, then turned away and left him to smoke in silence. The red-head had about four breaths to appreciate his final victory before he was accosted from a new, much more pleasant quarter.

"Oh **_Speedy_**!" Alicia was suddenly wrapped around him in an incredibly enjoyable way, all arms and chest and fair skin pressed against lightly sweat-sheened muscles and armor. "I—I only came—came to get a ride for Jess—from a friend here—when **_they_** showed up in the parking lot! I—I drew them away—so the others could go. I—I was **_so_** scared! I'm SORRY!" and she went from there to tears quite instantly, weeping steadily into his chest in an incredibly disconcerting manner. Speedy looked around reflexively for support, only to see that absolutely everyone had already cleared out—he and Alicia were alone amid the carnage he'd wrought.

"Hey—there, there, kid—nothing to worry about, it's all over now." He couldn't believe he was calling a woman about the same age as him a kid, but she was so utterly broken right now that he couldn't think of anything else to say. Earlier she'd been floating on delayed-action shock and the strength she had to fain to keep her ignorant little sister from panicking, but there was no one to protect now, and she was feeling every bit of her own mortality, the bruises already starting to rise on her neck where Don had been strangling her. Speedy just held her in silence for a few minutes and let her weep into him, looking somewhere between distressed and exasperated.

Then, her attention turned quite suddenly from weeping to something **_very_** different, and she leapt forward and surprised him with a deep, passionate kiss. She kissed him with a desperate need that took him completely off guard, and it was several seconds of leaning futilely away from her reaching lips before he managed to get a hold of himself and peel her off, dragging her back by her shoulders until he forcefully broke the kiss.

"Stop that!" he gasped out, more annoyed than outraged or angry, somehow indignant that she'd behave as she was right now.

"But—But—**_please_** Speedy, I love you! You saved me and—and I **_love_** you!" and though her words sounded breathless and genuinely excited, Speedy new better.

"You're talking out of shock," he informed her coolly, leveling a chilling, serious stare out from behind his masked eyes, "and I, for one, refuse to take advantage of a woman who isn't in possession of her proper senses. All of this will look different to you from the other side of some rest and a good meal, and I detest the thought that my affections would ever be the source of regret for a woman." That was that, and he started to pull away from her, only to be grabbed back up by a terror-fueled grip he couldn't break without hurting her.

"NO!" she shrieked, "I want **_you_** Speedy, I **_do_**! Don't try to deny that you want me too, not after the way you were flirting with me earlier!"

"I was doing that to bug Robin," Speedy was utterly cold, trying his best to shake her off with some false harshness, "I'd never seriously flirt with a woman who was nearly raped, not anymore than I would with you now after what just happened. Not even **_I_** am **_that_** much of a pig. Now seriously Alicia—**_go home_**."

He started to pull away again, only for her grip to tighten a third time, but only weakly. In fact it was not her grip that stopped him this time, but rather, the particular tone of her final plea.

"**_Please_**…" she whispered, her voice tiny as she clung to his back, "I can't stand to be alone right now. Please don't leave me alone."

This, at last, was genuine, and Speedy felt his attempt at coldness disintegrate under the force of need in her voice. With no pretense of passion or sexual desire, her true need for some kind of support after what had just transpired came through clearly, and that, at least, Speedy felt comfortable fulfilling.

"I suppose I can walk you home," was all he said, and those were the last words that passed between them for some time.

As the two of them made their way off of the battlefield, Speedy could hear the sound of the party continuing inside. Some of the partygoers had refused to acknowledge the insanity going on outside, and the people catering to their desires remained in turn, seeking to pump them for money despite the fact that their security forces had failed to report. Speedy made some inane, silent observations about the human ability to ignore the inconvenient in the face of the desirable, then collected his bow and arrows, remembering to drop a transmitter that would draw the police. Lord knows no one else that had witnessed the battle would bother to.

He left the scene slowly, a beautiful, now very frail and nearly broken woman wrapped around him, and he decided that everything else was just window dressing. A small part of him did worry about Robin and especially the girls, however. What the hell was happening with those two women?

--Starfire and Raven--

"Would you care to take 'the swim,' with me Robin?" Starfire asked cheerfully, her mind washed of all unpleasant nightmares by the sensation of the glorious sun on her bare flesh and the all-consuming presence of Robin. As far as she was concerned, she had never been accosted by an army of Robin-clones, nor had she ever intentionally harmed the Boy Wonder in any way, shape, or form. She was with him, here, in this paradise, and so all was right with the world. There was the nagging sensation that she was forgetting something important, but the haze her mind floated upon more than made up for this discomfort.

"Hey, sure," Robin agreed immediately, and Starfire instantly felt a fool for being nervous about asking. It was unreasonably hard to ask for his company engaging in such frivolity, at least when they were alone like this, and in her experience, he usually became nervous and flustered whenever she actually managed to work up the nerve anyway. That he was so openly willing to frolic in the calm, crystal blue waters with her was an incredible relief, and she felt her chest swell with joy as she floated right by him and prepared to plunge into the sea and preempt him on the splashing and chasing she was certain such play involved.

"Hold on!" Robin snapped out, only slightly irritated, and accentuated the command by snatching a very gentle, still extremely solid grip onto her ankle as she floated by his head. A brand new reflex Starfire didn't remember learning was triggered the moment that touch registered, and even without any leverage, her foot still snapped out at his face with force enough to shatter a block of wood. Robin swayed back away from the incoming foot with a reaction time that defied belief, releasing Starfire's leg as he turned the dodge into a tumble and rolled backward, coming up into a kickboxing stance before he knew what he was doing.

Reflex finally gave way to thought, and the two stared at each other, Robin still looking ready to break someone's bones, and Starfire still floating, now sporting a look of the most abject shock imaginable. Robin, standing down to a more casual posture with the slightest frown of embarrassment and confusion, was the first to break the silence.

"Sorry about that… I guess…" Robin admitted his fault for grabbing at her, still confused by her intense protest to the harmless touch, "But I was just going to suggest we invite Raven along. She'll **_probably_** blow us off, but it'd be impolite to not even ask."

"Raven…?" Starfire had completely failed to realize that the other girl was even present here, and with a sinking sensation in her heart that corresponded to her unintentionally lowering herself into the shallow water, she recognized this as the cause of a few misunderstandings. Robin hadn't agreed because he'd suddenly overcome his hang-ups about being alone with her, he'd agreed because there was a highly convenient chaperone around to keep this from being at all intimate. Compulsively reluctant to let this opportunity slip away none the less, Starfire said something she instantly regretted. "Let us forget about Raven!" she snapped out without thinking, "her presence would only deteriorate any fun we might have!"

"**_Starfire_**?" Robin fixed her with a blank look, utterly stunned by what she'd just said. With that look of combined surprise and disgust, the spell was broken, and the magical haze that had encompassed her mind so fully dissipated like a fleeting shadow before the sun. The world snapped into sharp focus, and she realized exactly what she'd just said. Immediately Star's hands flew to cover her mouth, her own eyes widening in shock, and after a moment of thought she found herself completely unable to account for where that comment had come from. It was as though a tiny voice had whispered them into her ear and she'd repeated them aloud without thinking about it.

"I—I—I did not mean—I did not think—" Starfire tried in vain to qualify her gaff, but Robin had already frowned and turned away, shaking his head. Her heart began to beat at a quick marching pace as her nerves exploded with concern over what he must think of her after such a thoughtless and nasty comment about their mutual friend, and it only worsened as he voiced his concerns.

"What's gotten into you two lately?" He asked, as he turned back and shot Starfire a crushingly suspicious glare out of the corner of his masked eyes. "I let you two tag along with me and Speedy because you assured me you'd be able to get by on your own while I keep the perverted idiot out of trouble. I've told you what he's like on these trips of ours several times now, after all. But now, no sooner do we get to the beach then you both start acting strangely! I mean, I'd expect a poor joke like **_that_** out of Beast Boy—but **_you_**? And what's worse… you weren't even joking when you said it!"

"Robin, I **_apologize_**!" Starfire made the statement almost desperately, flashing forward out of the water to stand behind him as she made her plea, "I did not think before I spoke, I do not know what overcame me!"

"It's not **_me_** you should apologize too Star, it's Raven. Tell it to **_her_**." Robin's statement was quite final, and he let his eyes drop down to the sand in disappointment, his very posture driving Starfire back with crippling shame.

Under normal circumstances, the thought she'd just spoken so flatly would never have even occurred to her, and had it actually passed through her mind, it would have upset her greatly. **_That_** was the worst of it then, the fact that Starfire **_knew_** Robin was right, and that her statement had been deplorably harsh and almost baseless besides, and this knowledge combined with his obvious disappointment in her to wring at her chest with a gut-wrenchingly hard embarrassment. She immediately turned away from Robin and scanned the beach for Raven, fully intending to apologize no matter if she'd heard the statement or not. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, when she looked and saw no one where Raven had supposedly once been, she almost melted with relief.

"Robin… where **_is_** Raven?" She voiced the question, unable to mask the sound of the stress leaving her as it seemed that her terrible words had never gotten the chance to hurt her friend.

"What?" and Robin's head snapped up as he too searched the empty shoreline from one sandy coast to the other as far as the eye could see before the curve of the island cut off the view. "Oh **_no_**…" and he sounded incredibly grave with those two simple words.

"Is… is something the matter?" Starfire truly did not see any reason for Robin's immediate concern, and the idea that she was missing something of terrible and dangerous importance colored her mind with fear and embarrassment anew as she glanced around reflexively in near-panic.

"I don't know…" Robin said it, though he obviously didn't **_mean_** it considering his next words, "something **_must_** have been wrong—she was acting strangely already—I should have **_asked_** her about it!" He suddenly broke into harsh self-incrimination, frightening Starfire anew.

"Whatever is the **_matter_**?" Starfire demanded now, needing some kind of relief to the terrifying suspicion that this fear and anger in Robin was somehow her fault. Robin could be the most wonderful man she'd ever known when he was content, but when he was angry… he scared her more than she could let herself admit and still feel the way she did about him.

"Something is **_definitely_** wrong here… I can **_feel_** it!" Robin answered her at last, his body tensing in agitation as his mind worked furiously, almost visibly, at the question causing him such strife. "Raven **_wouldn't_** have taken off unless something was **_seriously_** wrong… we need to find her!"

"Very well!" Starfire agreed instantly, relieved beyond words that his agitation was not directed at her, but rather, represented concern for Raven. At the same time, Starfire's heart grew heavy with worry of her own, Robin's hard reaction to Raven's disappearance infecting her with his sense of urgency. She had wronged her friend a moment ago, wronged her in a way she felt compelled to seek forgiveness for, and it was time to put even the glorious thought of Robin from her mind and attend to whatever was wrong with her best… and **_only_**… girlfriend in the world. Under all this, however, there was that tiny voice still whispering in her ear… the one that resented, nay, **_seethed_** over the idea that Robin would rather make certain of Raven's happiness than go for a swim with her.

She flew up and cleared the tree line without trouble, taking in the fullness of the island from her new vantage point, searching for likely places for the mystic's retreat. Considering Raven's incredible mobility, including teleportation, levitation, and wraithlike ability to phase through matter, there really wasn't anyplace she couldn't have gotten to, and Starfire looked for absolutely any clue as to where she might have gone. The island was tiny, not even a mile around all told, with a dense forest and cave-riddle rock formation in the center and glittering white beaches all around. From this height Starfire could also see where the island's reef protected the bay side and remained open on the surf side, naturally providing everything a vacationer could want from a tropical island. This was not her concern however, while a sudden wash of dark energy from a nondescript forest clearing most certainly was.

She'd found her.

Without ever considering any other course of action, Starfire descended to the forest clearing in a direct shot, zeroing in on the wavering black aura that had caught her eye. In a moment, as the aura faded in a sudden gasping hush, she could make out Raven herself, and her guts tightened in anticipation of what she'd have to explain and apologize for. It was only when she noticed the other figure in the clearing that her heart caught in her throat, she stuttered in midair, and then hastily plunged herself into the treetops at the edge of the clearing rather than approaching her dark friend as she'd intended. Something about seeing Raven, and then seeing Raven **_again_** standing next to herself, gave Starfire immediate pause, and she wanted to at least take a moment to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. Inadvertently beginning to eavesdrop, Starfire caught wind of the heated conversation passing between the two, and she suddenly knew that she wasn't the only one seeing doubled mystics.

"I was wondering when you'd show up again," Raven said moodily, and Starfire noted by her swimsuit and the flowery towel she wore that this was probably the Raven she'd gone looking for. She sounded kind of hoarse, as though she were congested, and as far as Starfire could tell from her hiding place, her face was flushed as well.

"What can I say?" The other Raven answered pleasantly, as though to spite Raven's sour tone, "I noticed that you needed some help, and I figured I was just the entity for the job." Starfire took a closer look at this Raven as she answered, and immediately felt a sense of foreboding as she took in the swirling purples and reds of her otherwise Titans-standard costume. Memories that would not quite come into remembrance danced teasingly along her brain as she listened to the two perfect twins further.

"I don't **_need_** any help," Raven muttered icily, though she still couldn't make her voice completely even. With a sudden flash of insight, Starfire recognized the roughness in Raven's voice, and along with her puffy eyes and particularly sour mood, she realized Raven had been crying. Her heart skipped a beat with horror as she assumed that it must have been her heartless comment that had elicited tears in her usually unfazeable friend, and she was horrified by the thought of causing her such pain. The concern ate at her as the conversation wore on.

"Oh, that's funny, I figure those trees over there would disagree with you," other Raven quipped sarcastically, and Starfire glanced to where she was indicating to notice with the slightest gasp the trees she spoke of. It was easy to pick them out because they still glowed faintly with Raven's power, and because they were about a million times more twisted to flinders than the trees around them. "Generally speaking," other Raven continued, seeming to revel in the way Raven squirmed in shame at what she'd done to the forest, "when the trees start getting tied into knots, its time for a little help."

"**_Shut up_**," Raven muttered again, and it was clear by her reaction that the other Raven had struck her **_exactly_** where it hurt, "what the hell would **_you_** know about helping me? All you've done is torment me since this disgusting nightmare began! Personification of what I want? HA!"

"Why Raven, I'm not sure what you're talking about." The other Raven responded immediately in a tone Starfire had only recently learned to distinguish as mockingly ignorant.

"Well then let me **_remind_** you," and Raven's tone had grown truly nasty, "it was just a few moments ago actually, and it involved me getting jumped by a gang of perverts you fancied up to look like **_Robin_**!"

The moment these words were spoken, something clicked inside of Starfire's mind, and like a huge gate opening and letting forth a flood, memories of this night's dreams poured past her eyes. Flashes of two harrowing encounters with a fiend disguised as Robin wracked her brain, even as the chilling battle with a million mindless beasts shaped like the object of her admiration played itself to its grisly conclusion before her mind's eye. She was shaking badly by the time the episode passed, on the verge of tears herself, even as dozens of little mysteries solved themselves. Her arrival in this place, the presence of two Ravens, even the magical encounter that almost happened with Robin, all seemed perfectly plausible now that she was once again reminded of the unreality she inhabited. She actually missed some of the discussion then, as their heated words were not going to wait up for her to overcome the memory obliterating effects of her dreams.

"…so **_I_** wasn't controlling them," she heard Lust, the spiritual aspect of Raven who'd invaded her nightmares, finish some explanation or other. "I'm only a small part of your mind and powers Raven, and this weird event is affecting all of you. Starfire's emotions were drawing our empathy in like a black hole, we were **_both_** going one way or another—the overly friendly Robin shades were just the way the forces manifested, not something I had control over."

"**_Don't try to feed me that bull!_**" Raven snapped, suddenly furious, and Starfire was shocked by the flash of emotion from the dour woman—almost as much as she was shocked by the blast of power that sundered apart the tree next to hers in a lick of black lightning that was perceptible only as an afterimage and a thundering sound. "I **_saw_** you create the first two Robin shades, I **_know_** they were **_your_** doing! I **_saw_** you go straight for the manifestation of Starfire's lust the moment we got here, and the **_same_** shades attacked me to keep me from stopping you! You're up to something, **_don't try to deny it_**!"

"Would you **_stop_** that?" Lust complained, utterly unimpressed by Raven's fury, despite the cloud of roiling black power that danced menacingly around her, fluttering the incongruously cheery beach towel with its passing. "The only reason you have any power at all in this place is because you began to acknowledge **_me_**. If you start getting bitchy, I can take it away again. Now get off the rag for a few seconds and I'll spin you a little tale that should set your troubled mind at ease."

The utter bravado of the comments seemed to take the wind out of Raven's fury quite readily, and she seemed to cave in on herself as the power bled from her aura. Starfire, who'd been ready to bolt for the sky, looked on in wonderment as, with a few deep breaths, Raven came back from the brink, focusing Lust with a steady stare that seemed to say, "I **_dare_** you to rationalize this mess."

"Let's just start at the beginning, shall we darling?" Lust began without hesitation, "where you and Starfire were drugged. I'm going to explain to you what we, or at least **_you_**, have been able to discern about the drug, because apparently it hasn't sunk in yet. First of all is that it's blocked your direct conscious access to your powers and other areas of your nervous system. You can't move, and you can't exhibit either active restraint or control over your natural abilities, unless prompted by an external stimulus."

"I'm **_painfully_** aware of my disabilities," Raven squeezed the words out between clenched teeth.

"Of course," Lust acknowledge that as a given, seeing as how she **_personified_** Raven's current **_lack_** of the restraint she usually held perfectly in balance. "But here's where things start to get interesting. As I was trying to explain back in your own dream, you've been empathizing with Starfire quite accidentally for hours now. Starfire has been infected with the same chemical as you, but it affected her in an entirely unexpected way, latching quite insistently to whatever she uses as a pituitary gland and simultaneously submerging her natural inhibitions and self-restraint—a lot like being drunk, but without the loss of reflexes, and with a great big dose of sex drive."

"Starfire doesn't **_have_** a sex drive," Raven bit out, half defensively and half derisively, "I'd be surprised if she knew what sex **_was_**."

Starfire, for her part, became particularly attentive as the conversation shifted to her, understandably eager to have some further light shed on why these dreams were so extraordinarily unprecedented for her. They kept using the word 'sex' which she knew to mean child-making, but the context it was used in eluded her completely, and she found herself blushing furiously as they continued to speak of her.

"Don't be **_dense_**," Lust admonished Raven with a wave of her hand, "we're all animals at heart, no matter **_how_** many layers of higher thinking you strap over the beast within. Starfire is **_well_** past the age of sexual maturity… introduce the right chemicals and remove the prohibitive mask of social inhibitions… and you get the barely coherent sex fiend that accosted Robin earlier. She doesn't have to **_consciously_** want it—she doesn't even have to know what '**_it'_** is—sex was governed by hormones and proteins for eons before it was governed by romance, emotion, or active, conscious thought, and all it takes is a little manipulation to make it that way again. Do you get it yet? Do you understand what kind of feelings you've been accidentally leaching into yourself for so long?"

"Oh… _my_… **_god_**…" Raven's anger seemed to crumble quite suddenly under the magnitude of what was occurring to her. Starfire was almost jealous, because their conversation had gone right over her head in a very fundamental way. She could remember the terrible dreams she'd been having, even the ones that occurred before she realized she was dreaming at all, but she did not know what they were speaking of when the referred to her 'accosting' Robin. As far as she knew, it had been most disturbingly the other way around.

"That's right, your brain's been sucking up undiluted, feral sexuality for hours on end. Is it any wonder then that **_I_** came into being? Is it really so hard to believe all that's been going on considering the source of these phenomenon? Of course I went straight for the drug-induced lust the moment I got here, that's what sucked us in here in the first place, the draw might as well have been magnetic for all I could have resisted it, for all **_we_** could have resisted it. It's been powering my manifestation all night, and when it beckoned, I came."

"And just what was all that fancy light about then? What the hell happened between you and your illustrious power source?" Raven asked, her anger cooling fully into more of a dull suspicion. Starfire was utterly absorbed, despite the extensive tracts of the conversation that eluded her understanding, as she was desperate to know more of this drug she'd been infected with and its relation to the miserable dreams she'd been having.

"Oh… yes… that…" Lust sounded almost embarrassed now, and this seemed to surprise Raven enormously. "Well… let's just say that she and I… **_interfaced_**. We came to and understanding, and I—**_we_**—actually managed to exert a modicum of control over her. Why do you think you ended up here when the smoke settled?"

"And where exactly is **_here_**?" Raven wasn't letting up, despite the mellow, calming way Lust had with words. She seemed determined to find some fissure in Lust's story that she could attack until the whole neat package disintegrated, but was so far having little luck. At this rate, Starfire thought, even Raven would have to give up her suspicious nature and admit that the worst had passed. She knew little of the conflict between the Raven she knew and this mysterious manifestation of that woman's powers, but it seemed as though the mystic had, either herself or through this Lust character, saved her from the uncaring, frightening thing stalking her dreams, and she was grateful, no matter what else came to light.

"Why, this is a dream of course. One of the nicer ones Starfire tends to have, with a few embellishments of our own, of course. Do you like it?" Lust asked, genuinely curious, trying to get the conversation on to other things.

"Gee, let me think," Raven said sarcastically, before throwing her beach towel off of her shoulders and letting it settle on her arms, revealing her exceptionally well-cut one-piece, "does this **_look_** like something I could enjoy myself in?" It was the first time Starfire had gotten a good look at it, and she recognized it immediately. She thought bemusedly that it looked quite as good on Raven as she thought it would when she saw it on the store rack, and this thought lead her to an epiphany on the nature of this dreamland before Lust could even finish explaining.

"Whoo-hoo!" Lust hooted mockingly once, prompting Raven to conceal herself again, before she went on to explain, "that's a little number from the Starfire side of dreamland. Apparently it's what **_she'd_** imagine you wearing to the beach, whether or not you'd ever give it a second look. Personally I don't know what you're complaining about—you look hot."

"Personally, **_I don't give a shit what you think_**," Raven snapped out the words with an acid edge, making them sting into the air with the force of her discontent. "Starfire can dress however she wants—I'm not about to criticize her culture or her species' fashion sense—and she has the personality to pull it off besides. I, on the other hand, look like a **_bimbo_** in this getup, and I **_hate_** it. Now stop trying to change the subject and explain to me just how you managed to take control over so much undiluted, primal emotion."

"You don't look like a bimbo," Lust ignored Raven's command, causing the other woman's eyes to light with the blazing edge of fury once again, "You really **_do_** look hot. I know, trust me on this." Incredibly, the words actually seemed to get through to Raven, and the fury sputtered out as she took a moment to consider that heartfelt statement from Lust. Lust even had the courtesy to pick up the discussion without being asked again.

"The method I used to contain the lust running rabid in Starfire's dreams is inconsequential. The important thing to know is that we came to an understanding, and as a sort of apology for jumping you two with a horde of lust-drones shaped like Mr. short, dark, and utterly ripped himself, we cooked up this little vacation spot for you. We even managed to populate it with a genuine article manifestation of Robin pulled from your mutual memories of him. It was supposed to be restful—to take your mind off of the shitstorm you've had to weather since the Joker pulled his most recent gag. But what do **_you_** go and do… the very **_moment_** it's about to get interesting?"

"**_Don't_**!" Raven commanded Lust, as though there was some chance of her being obedient now when she hadn't been before. "Just Don't!"

"I mean, I told you it was time to start asserting yourself, to start expressing your feelings rather than denying them. I **_told_** you," and now Lust was becoming very different, menacing and imposing rather than placating and pleasant, and Starfire felt a chill wind sweep through the land, the whole world seeming to darken as Lust's mood swung violently to the opposite pole. For some reason, Starfire was filled with a staggering foreboding that had nothing to do with the environment change and everything to do with a horrifying sense that she was about to be faced with a world-shattering revelation.

"You don't know what you're talking about. You can't understand—you can't comprehend what it is to look at those two, at the way just being next to him makes her light up, the way he lets his guard down more for her than for anyone else! You're not me, you're just the worst part of me, the small-minded, selfish part that I've learned to live without. I don't have to take my marching orders from you, no matter how many drug-trips inflate you past your means! I'm not going to do anything to hurt my friend, no matter how much I suffer in turn!"

"BITCH!" Lust screamed, and there was more to her voice than ever before, terrifying undertones that played along Starfire's ears with the strangest tingle of familiarity. "How **_dare_** you deny me? How **_dare_** you deny your feelings? You know what happens when you don't acknowledge every part of your soul! Do you want another dose of what I gave you earlier?"

"Go fuck yourself," Raven spat the curse into Lust's face without hesitation. "Oh wait, you might enjoy that, **_slut_**!"

"WHAT?" and Starfire found herself silently echoing Lust's amazement, even though she had little understanding of Raven's insults beyond the fact that it would be difficult for them to be more offensive than they had been. The ever-growing sense of impending doom was joined by an almost bemused admiration for the incredible drama taking place before her. It was a disturbing dichotomy.

"Do you really think me so gullible, Lust—or whatever the hell you are?" Raven asked, and Starfire was mystified by the accusations she was making. "I may have been having some issues lately, but I know myself, and you're no part of me, so I can deny you all I want. I'll admit you almost had me going, when you came to confront me for crying over **_him_**," and Starfire felt a sudden thrill of terror at these words which she was unable to account for, "because Lust did the same thing back in my mind. But you're not her, you're nothing that was ever me, you're just the end product of a madman's insane plan to torture me and my friends. None of your lies can conceal your true nature from **_me_**."

There was a long pause after the accusations hit the air, and the world seemed to hold its breath.

"Very good Raven," Lust said, in a completely different voice, and Starfire felt her mind stutter over this rearrangement as, confronted by Raven's utter certainty, the thing impersonating Lust confessed outright. To Starfire's combined amazement and disgust, Lust transformed in a twirling vortex of green energy, becoming, rather than a clone of Raven, something very much resembling Starfire herself. Oh, she was glowing with an all-over green sheen, and she maintained a surly smile more at home on Blackfire, but it was definitely some terrible doppelganger of Starfire that now occupied the clearing across from Raven, and the sight made Star's blood run cold.

"So you finally made you're appearance, whatever you are," Raven called out her new opponent, seemingly quite satisfied at her victory.

"You can continue to call me Lust. In a way, the name fits me far better than that delightful little morsel that was so easily assimilated." So that was it, Raven and Starfire realized at the same time—this thing had consumed Raven's emotional aspect of desire after sucking Raven into Starfire's dreams. The very concept numbed Starfire with a horror that did not dissipate the lingering feeling of impending misery, but increased the cocktail of nightmarish feelings this paradise had become home to.

"I'm not sure what you are," Raven admitted, her voice edged with anger and that coldly threatening tone she used in combat, "But I know every moment of suffering Starfire and I have endured is **_your_** doing one way or another. I've no doubt that before you consumed a part of my mind and gained insight into the 'mechanics' of what you wanted, you tormented Starfire with visions of Robin presented in ways she'd never even remotely considered. After you sucked down my vagrant powers, you became a little more **_creative_**."

"Why thank you Raven, I'll take that as a compliment," and the glowing mockery of Starfire's form seemed to preen as she hovered arrogantly before Raven. "I owe it all to you, after all—this evolution. Who would have thought a humble little overpowering urge like me could advance into what I've become? Who would have imagined there was such a world of 'activities' that so perfectly satisfy the urges I personify? Starfire was clueless… you can't **_comprehend_** how frustrating that is—but **_you_**… you have quite the wealth of information. That made it easy to 'screw' with you."

"It's called 'being an American teenager,'" and Raven sounded almost disgusted by what her own thoughts had become twisted into. "You can't even watch network television anymore without getting a pretty good idea of how it all works—**_you_** have no idea how frustrating some of Starfire's innocuous questions can be. It's actually pretty cute—when it isn't unbearably embarrassing. Now it's time to stop 'screwing around'. We want out. **_Now_**."

Starfire felt a thrill as she listened to her friend fearlessly talk down to the apparition that had been tormenting them, and only the foreboding terror that still nipped at her heart like a hard frost kept her from shouting out a whoop of support as Raven told this thing, this 'Lust', what was what. Lust's response, on the other hand, was less than confidence-inspiring.

"MmhmhmHAHAHAHA," she laughed powerfully, fixing Raven with a newly arrogant smile, as though her demands had been perfectly amusing. "**_You_** presume to order **_me_**? In case it has eluded your notice, **_I_** am in control here, you and the ignorant one are just passengers, bereft of any semblance of command you may have once had. Starfire was unable to resist my influence, even when she was conscious. And you, my pretty little empath, have but the barest shadow of your power. Even what you demonstrated earlier are mere table-scraps granted to you by your instinctual reaction to **_my_** brilliance—otherwise you'd still be as powerless as the drug left you earlier."

"We'll just see about that!" Raven snapped out in a challenging bark, then, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" A swirling black cloud emerged from her outstretched fingers, the smog flying in a living swarm to envelope Lust. Lust waved her hand, and the cloud dissipated, vanishing without a trace, as though swallowed by the air itself. Raven didn't seem at all perturbed by the attack's failure, and was about to follow up when Lust snapped her fingers in an easy, almost idle gesture.

"Eee!" Raven let out the slightest screech as she was roughly grabbed up by arms that blasted forth from the soil itself, gripping her by the ankles and thighs. Before she could finish directing her power to eradicate the offending appendages, they had tripped her to the ground, where another dozen hands grabbed her up and down her arms, two sets hugged her around the waist, and a final group clenched onto her head, one set clamping down over her mouth and eyes to choke off her power. She struggled valiantly against their multi-faceted grip, but she was simply overpowered.

Starfire was torn, completely bisected over what to do. A very large part of her demanded that she strike immediately to aid Raven, who had been trying to help them both by vanquishing the terror that stalked her dreams. At the same time, she was still gripped by a fear that defied rational quite stubbornly. She was frozen in horror, her body refusing to rise to the call of battle in a way that she'd never before experienced. She was no coward—she'd been blooded in the crucible of combat more times than she could rightly account for—but something about this situation chilled her warrior spirit, quenched her will to fight, even in the face of her dear friend's distress. So she did nothing, and she hated herself for it, but the shadow of the doom she'd sensed for so long now stretched ever further over her.

"Do you still not see the situation you're in here little Raven?" The Lust shaped like Starfire asked mockingly as she hovered slowly toward the blinded, gagged, and bound woman. "'At my mercy' does not even **_begin_** to describe it. You are both slaves to me. You are my playthings, my little dolls with which to act out every dark little fantasy you've ever even heard of. Because this isn't about what **_you_** want, not anymore. This is beyond your mind and thoughts now, this is about what your **_body_** wants, what your **_flesh_** wants, that's what **_I_** am. Oh… yes… I want to try it **_all_**."

"MMMPFH!" Raven tried to rage against what she was hearing, but could make no coherent sound past the hand gagging her mouth. Starfire, for her part, had to clamp down on the urge to fly away as fast as she could, something she only managed when she remembered her equally intense desire to break through the chains of terror and rush to her friend's aid. She wavered between the two extremes, the irrational fear and the call to action, and did nothing. What she knew for certain was that if 'what her body wanted' was anything like the hot, moist, frighteningly intense sensations she'd been assaulted with earlier, then she would sooner exile herself from Earth than submit to the Lust again. No matter how nice it may or may not have felt, these were definitely **_not_** the circumstances she wanted to experiment with them under. Her futile attempt to avoid the conflict facing her was broken when Lust spoke again.

"We're going to have such a time!" Lust exclaimed excitedly as she floated ever closer to Raven, then finally touched down right next to her bound victim. "I'm not sure how to start, but I was thinking we could go classic style—" and she suddenly shifted in form, near-instantly becoming a perfect duplicate of Robin, dressed in full Titan's uniform. "This one seemed to work great on Starfire," she said with Robin's voice, "even before I gained my new 'understanding.' I'm sure you'll both enjoy it too—or rather, I'll **_see to it_** that you do." Starfire prickled with a new flash of anger at this plain proof that the 'urge' before her had been impersonating Robin in her dreams, but it was not enough to overcome the mysterious quailing in her heart.

"Or maybe we could try—" and she shifted again, a green halo coalescing into a familiar, slightly boyish form. "This," she said in Beast Boy's voice. "It's not quite as stacked as the last one, but it has that cute, 'robbing the cradle' appeal. Besides… he can transform parts of his body… so that 'hung like a horse' isn't just an expression. You **_can't_** tell me that never crossed your mind—I **_know_** it has." Raven merely struggled more fiercely against the arms, apparently trying to ignore Lust's taunting.

"We could also try—" she transformed in a blur of deep blue, becoming the magnificently cut Aqualad, "this. Or perhaps—" and this time it was a yellowish blur that transmitted her to Speedy's shape, "this. And then there's—" and a bluish-grey blur made her Cyborg, "this. None of us know how much of him is still man rather than machine," she quipped in Cyborg's thick, powerful voice, "but I'm **_sure_** it's enough to make ya **_scream_**." Raven suddenly redoubled her efforts to escape, still uselessly, but Lust's words were becoming more and more disturbing.

"And then, as a finale—" Lust transformed back into the greenly glowing copy of Starfire, "I might have a little fun like this too. I know the very thought makes your skin crawl, but that doesn't mean it won't feel good, and isn't **_that_** what matters, when you get right down to it?" The hands gripping Raven's head suddenly forced her to nod in agreement, and she screamed protest against the hand gagging her. "I'm glad you agree! We are going to have **_so_**—**_much_**—**_fun_**! And imagine, you'll finally get an unrestricted shot at Robin… or at least something that **_looks_** like him."

With those final words, something clicked in Starfire's mind, and all the terror that she'd had no conscious reason for feeling, along with all the growing anger and frustrated desire to act she'd been bottling for reservation of that terror, all burst like a lanced boil, exploding with the realization that had finally beaten its way into her brain. An icicle of horror stabbed into her heart, and from here, it only dug deeper. The reason for Raven's tears, the reason for the mysterious form of their common tormentor, the many strange comments made by Lust, they all pointed to one incontrovertible fact. This fact tore out her heart and consumed it.

"That's what all this was supposed to be, do you realize that?" Lust said, somewhat cryptically, changing tracks without warning and not bothering to ungag Raven to allow for her to respond. "It was an experiment, to be sure, an attempt to ease you into the experiences I intended to enjoy tonight. Let me tell you, that's the last time I bother with subtlety—I didn't need it before, and look what happens when I try it! You take one look at those two hitting it off, as they always do, and you crumbled like a sandcastle in the wind. All that resolve you showed Lust, all gone in one pathetic crumbling. Before we go grab Starfire and start the party, I have to know—I thought you loved him, and I **_know_** you lust for him. What happened?"

Starfire had been doing a magnificent job of latching on to denial, but this effort staggered as the evidence mounted before her. It was a concept that had never occurred to her, a scenario that she'd never considered—it was simply too heartbreaking to have ever crossed her mind, though it now seemed as though she should have noticed, that it was some lack in her that had let her ignore what had been right in front of her. She was still chilled, the ice eating out her entire torso as it spread out from the dagger in her heart.

Raven, meanwhile, slumped in the gaggle of arms, going limp as she was confronted with the very misery she'd distracted herself from by attacking Lust. As she lost all of her fight, Lust let the hands off of her face, revealing the crushed expression underneath the choking, blinding palms. She was grimacing magnificently, and the expression told Starfire more than anything else that this terrible fact was really real, and not just the slanderous machinations of the terrible beast their twin drugged minds had brewed.

"I do…" Raven mumbled, "I—I can't stand it!" She became angry suddenly, then slumped just as quickly back into misery, "They're my best friends. I could never hurt either of them—I can't even imagine it! I sooner lay down my life than see either of them in pain. But… but Robin… I… I see her with him… and I… I just **_can't_** take it." These last words were so quiet that Starfire could barely hear them, not that she really needed to at this point. She had only to see Raven's lips move, to see them form those three words, those three wonderful, terrible words, the same ones she'd longed to express herself, to know with an utter, spirit-crushing certainty that her every terror of these past minutes had been disastrously justified.

The moment she could no longer deny the obvious misery that had crept from the shadows to torment her, she was overcome by a sensation of hopeless pain that dwarfed anything she'd felt before. Her flight ability, wavering in and out of functionality as she was alternatively thrilled and terrified by the drama playing out before her, finally sputtered and died as her heart shattered, and she fell from the sky like a stone, impacting with the earth in a resounding thud that neither being she'd been spying on could possibly fail to notice.

--Robin--

Robin careened into the medical floor off the elevator like a shot coming out of a cannon, caught himself on the door frame of the stasis room, and jerked himself into the space containing both women with a motion that sacrificed any kind of grace for pure, panicked speed.

His jaw dropped.

The room was a mass of crackling black energy, the rippling waves of heatless fire dancing in myriad twirls around the perfectly still, recumbent form of Starfire, which seemed strangely peaceful considering the insane jumping and beeping sputtering forth from the life signs monitor next to her bed. The walls, ceiling, and floor had all been ripped and scored, as though by some terrible storm of heat and electricity, and the robotic arm that had once dominated the space was now twisted and warped into an unrecognizable lump of slag.

He quickly got over his amazement at the state of the room as his concern for the women blazed brilliantly back into the front of his mind, his urgency focusing him on the task at hand. Gazing through the will-o-wisps of dazzling flame, he saw that, considering she was in stasis freeze, Starfire's pulse was racing at an unbelievable relative rate that would have caused a human heart to stall and fail in moments, and that her brainwaves were doing things that didn't belong in any mind not high on cocaine. Something had gone terribly wrong.

He glanced next to Raven, but her life signs were not nearly as interesting, and she was not surrounded by a cloud of flickering, cold, disembodied candle flames, so he paid her only half a mind. He turned to the computer terminal that was supposed to be monitoring the two women, then did a painfully sudden double-take and jerked his head back at Raven's side of the room, eyes wide with mind-numbing shock as he confirmed what he'd only thought he'd seen.

Sure enough, her brainwaves were **_flat-lining_**, her pulse almost nonexistent, and Robin felt himself chill from head to toes as his heart almost stopped. Those were not the readings given off by an effectively live person, even in stasis, and for one cardiac-pummeling instant, he knew he'd failed to get back in time, and that she was gone.

Then he noticed the black flames, flickering so easily and languidly, as though they had no greater purpose in the universe than to float around mysteriously and give of an occasional twinkle. It was unmistakably Raven's power, and as it crowded around Starfire, Robin felt his heart re-inflate like a balloon touched to a helium pump. Her power meant she was still alive, and as though to support this conclusion, her heart monitor gave of the faintest **_beep_**, before falling back into silence, her body living on even with zero brain activity.

His worst fears momentarily averted, he turned to the computer once more, working furiously at the keys to get some kind of grip on the situation, his mind wracked with guilt that he'd been so stupid as to leave them alone and untended when their health was still in question. There was no doubt in his mind now that his need to be away from them to collect his thoughts had now caused them some kind of terrible trauma, and the guilt made every beat of his pounding, worry-stressed heart a new, unique agony. Anything that happened to them at this point was **_entirely_** his fault.

The computer responded to the queries he input with obnoxious neutrality, as though to mock the rushing urgency that possessed him so utterly. It informed him in no uncertain terms that the antidote would not be ready for some time, and that Starfire was currently in exactly the kind of critical condition one didn't tempt by breaking the stasis lock. Any disturbance when her vitals were spiking like this could prove instantly fatal, and so Robin found himself helpless to do anything at all. At the emotionless mercy of the medical computers, he could only turn and stare forlornly at the two beauties lying helpless in the grip of who knows what horrors. He'd heard stories of the early days of stasis, of the nightmares people had, and now, they were suffering the same, or worse, because of him.

He was distracted from such dark considerations quite completely when the veritable smog of black flames began to quicken, coming to a new life before his amazed eyes. As he watched, black lightning began to play between the individual snipits of flame, and soon they were all joined together by the dancing streamers of ebony. Like a system of concentric hoops, the rings and knots of lighting began to spin and twirl, slowly at first, but faster on until they were like solid bands of vicious black energy wrapping Starfire around a million times over. Something was definitely happening, and he was **_helpless_**.

--Raven and Starfire--

Raven looked toward the unexpected sound of impact, and what she saw struck her through with a terror that blew every other concern completely out of her mind. Starfire was crouched in the grass, staring at her with the wide-eyed, empty expression of a beaten child or a shell-shocked warrior. In that chilling instant, Raven knew she'd heard her say it, those three words that she'd never had the courage to voice outside of her own mind until it had been dragged from her by the uncaring ministrations of the demon of primeval drives that had risen from the depths of their combined subconscious minds to torture them. Three words that changed everything, three words that could ruin three lives, three words that Starfire, of all people, could never hear her say.

I love Robin.

Tears were running down Starfire's face now, seeping slowly from her unblinking eyes as they focused that thousand-mile stare into Raven and down to her very soul. Raven was shocked to feel tears in her own eyes as well, and they flowed ever more freely as she realized the magnitude of this nightmare situation. Starfire **_knew_**. She knew that Raven had betrayed her trust, that she had been mocking their friendship in her secret heart of hearts, mocking the closeness they shared with her unforgivable desire for the same man her friend had been cultivating for so long now.

The things she must be wondering, the terrible questions that had to be racing through her mind—just imagining them staggered Raven, clipping out the universe besides herself and her friend. She must be wondering the most terrible things, things that chilled Raven even to consider them. How man times, she must be asking, did she confide in Raven about what she felt for Robin only to have the woman resent it secretly? How much of the advice and comforting words Raven had provided had been in secret bad faith, steering her wrong lest she succeed with Robin and rob Raven of any fantasy of the same success? How often had Raven seethed with jealousy and hatred, even as she chatted pleasantly with her secret rival?

It was staggering, and Raven silently railed against the thoughts, shaking her head visibly against these things that must be sizzling through Star's brain, as though her outward denial could possibly quell her fears. She didn't know how she could say it, how she could convey the agony this had been for her and make herself credible. How could Starfire believe that she'd spent extensive tracts of meditation every day submerging those treacherous feelings, grinding them away lest they surface and destroy their happiness? What reason could she have to be understanding if Raven tried to express what an agony it had been keeping her damnably backstabbing emotions in check every time she saw those two having fun, smiling to each other, or standing close in an empty room? It had been a nightmare, a nightmare she could not even seek relief from in the confidence of her one true friend. Starfire… Robin… they were **_never supposed to know_**, and now they both did. Raven's world was coming apart at the seams.

"Aww, isn't this a sorry sight?" Lust said, cruelly indifferent to the agony now shared by the two women. "I was wondering when the ignorant one was going to come down from there and join the party, but now it looks like she's not in the mood for my kind of fun. That's too bad… for **_her_**."

Starfire and Raven ignored her, far too wrapped in the emotional destruction passing between their wide, weeping, linked eyes. Lust did not appreciate being ignored.

"Enough!" She shouted, and the world shook around them with the force of her rage. "This is supposed to be a party! Or rather—it's supposed to be an **_orgy_**, but give it a few minutes. I even know just how to start this out right!"

As her words faded, the arms gripping Raven sprang to life, ending their indifferently ironclad grip and transforming it into something far more intimate. Clearing space by letting loose their hold on all but her wrists and ankles, the remaining freed up hands began to massage Raven everywhere at once. There were suddenly hands pressing up and down her back, running across her thighs and legs, squeezing her shoulders and biceps, and even gently gripping at her feet. It was a far cry from what it could become at Lust's merest whim, but it was still enough to bring Raven back to the immediate concern of her captivity, and she started to struggle right away. There was very little between her and nudity right now, and she had no illusions about where those hands would get to through the gaping holes in her swimsuit if she gave them the chance.

The moment she broke eye contact, Starfire reacted, reaching out as though to touch her, even across the clearing that stood between them. Her face was still plastered with an expression of combined horror and disbelief, as though she'd just witnessed a train wreck, and, in a way, she had. Lust noticed her start to get to her feet, and she ignored the utter lack of threat expressed by her face and body language, snapping her fingers distractedly as she watched the hands do their work

"No need to rush, you're turn is coming," Lust said chillingly, as phantom arms sprouted from the air to grab Starfire by the shoulders, jerking her back and away from Raven and Lust.

"No—stop this!" Raven shouted, as the constant massage worked its slow magic, her body responding to the so-far innocent touches in a way she hadn't imagined possible. She was actually heating up from the inside, just from the massage, and it disgusted her even more than anything that had happened earlier. At least that had been masturbation—of a sort—but this was going to be rape! "Azarath, Met—" she began, determined to escape from the unwanted ecstasies this thing intended to play out upon her flesh, only for one of the free hands to gag her again. She shook her head to try and escape the choking grip, but her body was loosing activity as the massage turned her muscles to jelly. Her free eyes did say something, however, as they glanced over to Starfire with a pleading deeper than any they'd ever held.

Starfire's broken gaze caught Raven's hopelessly pleading eyes, and she glanced away, as though unwilling to even behold such a request from the one who'd betrayed her so despicably. That was it then, Raven realized as the hands began to edge ever so slowly toward more sensitive parts of her body, rubbing the exposed flesh of her back and stomach through the holes in her suit, Starfire wasn't going to help. She must have thought her deserving of whatever violation Lust intended to mete out, and in a way, Raven couldn't blame her. She had done something terrible, something she wasn't sure she'd have ever forgiven if she were in Starfire's position, and no matter what else, perhaps she did deserve a punishment. If this dream rape was to be it… well…

Starfire suddenly exploded with green power, her fists becoming two brilliant auroras of intense fusion energy as heat blasted out of every inch of her body. The hands gripping her incinerated, having no hope of withstanding that power while in contact with her skin. Raven could **_see_** it, her eyes wide in amazement, she could **_see_** the heat rolling off of Starfire's body, emanating from every pore left exposed by the skimpy bikini that showed off her magnificent alien body to such incredible effect. Raven felt a moment of burgeoning hope, hope that Starfire might forgive her, hope that she might yet be spared from the terrible humiliation and degradation this thing intended to work upon her.

The hope died when Starfire turned her eyes back toward the two in the clearing, because there was no mistaking the fury bleeding in green flames from the emerald slits in Star's face. They were like two green suns, and their flames were for Raven only, boring into her like the burning pools they were. That was it, Raven realized, with a mixture of compassionate appreciation and heartbreaking resignation. Starfire was going to rescue her from humiliation… by punishing her herself. This was a much more agreeable fate, one she accepted as only right, under these extreme circumstances, and she did not flinch as Starfire pounced across the ground, running with a speed more akin to jungle cats than anything on two legs.

The first glowing green fist was in the air and about to strike before even Lust could do anything to counteract the attack, though the way it was directed expressly at Raven probably didn't hurt as far as her lack of reaction was concerned. It was probably the only reason the attack succeeded, actually.

At the last conceivable instant, Starfire's fist reversed momentum expertly, changing from a downward plunge that would have eradicated Raven from the face of Starfire's dreamscape—possibly plunging her into brain death, and certainly not letting her off with less than insanity—into a backhand directed at a very different target. The iridescent fist caught Lust across the jaw with enough force to cave in the side of a main battle tank, and she felt every last little bit of it.

Like a marble flung from a slingshot, Lust went flying at incredible speed, skimming along the ground for two dozen feet before her head clipped the earth and she set into a flesh-peeling roll that kicked up the root-encrusted forest floor in a cloud of blood and grime. Finally, she was flung off a protruding root into the air again, where her face impacted with a tree trunk, and the rest of her body wrapped itself around the plant before tumbling back to the ground with the last of her momentum. It was stunning just to watch, and it took Raven several moments to even conceive of what had just happened.

"Mrrphire…?" Raven made an inquisitive sound through the hand-gag, hoping against hope that this act meant what she thought it might mean.

"Do not speak to me right now Raven. Not about that. Just… **_do not_**." Ah… a reprieve, but only a temporary one. They would settle this after they'd escaped this freakish amalgamation that was trying to turn their flesh against them, and Raven, despite her lingering concern for the future, was absolutely relieved that this was the case.

"Do you believe you might still respond to direct commands as that **_thing_** said you were forced to?" Starfire asked unexpectedly as she incinerated the hands accosting Raven with beams from her eyes, then helped her friend-cum-romantic rival off of the ground. It was an incredibly insightful question, and Raven instantly knew what Star planned.

"I'm not sure. I've had free will to move and act in these dreams, but my powers, my **_true_** powers… they might still be under the command restriction." This was good. Businesslike, professional, just two super heroines fighting their way out of a terrible situation. Yeah, **_right_**. "I can't be sure though."

"Well, we are about to discover its truth the difficult way. Here it comes!" Sure enough, Starfire pointed with one glowing hand, and there was Lust prying herself out of the forest, yanking bark from her flesh and extricating a tree branch that had impaled her throat. Before their eyes, the wounds vanished, as did the blood, and she was whole and perfect once more, not to mention furious beyond reckoning.

"I will make you scream out in the agony of absolute bliss!" the apparition stated in a monstrous howl, its voice no longer resembling anything remotely human. Its green glow was run through with crimson, and it seemed to grow even as they watched, distorting out and away from its resemblance to Starfire and into something much different, much more… appropriate.

"We shall see, creature!" Starfire stated confidently, expressing a great deal more bravado than Raven thought her capable of. The almost feline hydra before them only roared its rage against their defiance, stomping forward on perfect feminine legs like the trunks of saplings, its impossibly perfect female body playing contrast to its inhuman face. "Raven, hear my command!" Starfire started, staring bleakly at the beast with her lantern eyes, "make that **_fnargling_** **_drenthack_** pay for screwing with us. Make her **_suffer_**!"

It was the single most vindictive thing Raven had ever heard Starfire say. Who was she kidding—it was the **_only_** vindictive thing she'd ever heard the gentle warrior say. Even when her sister had betrayed her and nearly sold her into marital slavery for a bauble and the throne, she'd only been **_angry_**, or indignant perhaps. But this—this was **_revenge_**, this was violence and bloodshed put into words, this was a deeper hate than Starfire had ever expressed before, and Raven couldn't help but fear that **_she_** was more the cause of it than Lust. None the less, it worked.

"Yes…" she heard the word come from her lips, but she hadn't spoken it. Then, like water filling an empty vessel, her power returned to her. It came to her slightest whim as though it had never left her, as though she hadn't been operating on the tiniest shadow of it since the moment her own Lust removed its restrictions. Just as predicted, that direct command unleashed every bound the diabolical drug had placed upon her, and she was energized as she hadn't felt since this nightmare began. Oh my… the tables… how they turn. She smiled, and it wasn't a kind smile.

"AZARATH!" the first word of her mantra escaped her lips in a projecting shout, and she could feel the power come to her call like a dog to heel, crackling along her nerves, waiting only for the release it knew was coming.

"METRION!" it bucked against its restraints within her, desperate to get at the twisted sister energy before it, to exact vengeance for its mistress, to meet the lumbering kismet charging towards them even now.

"ZINNNNTHHHHOOSSSS!" the last word was drawn out as power unfathomable rolled forth from Raven's body in a veritable tide, pouring into the soil in front of them like it would feed the earth. In immediate response, the ground bucked, the fabric of this dream rearranging itself to the demands of its new mistress, then spewed forth to take on this ten-foot-tall, cat-faced demon of unrestrained carnality. Soil turned to solid rock by Raven's power molded into chains and wrapped around Lust a dozen times in the space of a single breath, moving in blur-fast strikes to clap her down to the ground, utterly immobilized so close that either woman could have reached out to touch her. Lust screamed her frustration to the world, and the world shuddered in sympathy, but no matter how she strained against the bonds, they would not budge.

"Oh, let me tell you bitch," Raven said, the black glow never leaving her eyes or hands as she strained against Lust's attempts to escape, "I'm going to make you **_regret_** those gropes! No one even **_touches_** me without my **_express_** permission, and **_you_** are a serious violator. I've been dominating feelings stronger than you since I was old enough to feel them, and you've earned a little treatment I like to call, '**_The Geas of Austerity_**.'"

"NOOOO!" Lust shrieked, thrashing under the bonds fiercely enough to draw a rock-crushing bitch slap from an incredibly irate Starfire. Despite the size difference, Lust's feral visage snapped around and a trickle of spittle was knocked from her lips.

"I'm going to **_erase_** you, drug hormones be damned," Raven said with tangible finality as she began to draw arcane symbols in the air in front of her with both glowing hands. "Magic will kick the ass of human science any day of the week. By Azar—you're lucky this is Starfire's mind, or I'd just neuter the brain and cut you out at the **_roots_**."

"You won't cast **_anything_**—not when you're writhing in pleasure!" Lust shrieked in her bestial voice, and just like that, the ground all around them, all the soil Raven's power hadn't touched, came to life. Rising from the earth were Robins, Robins yet again, all dressed now in his costume, at least, but staring at them with dead, mindless eyes. They stood free from the earth in ever expanding rings, and in mere seconds, they could not be numbered. Their ranks spread forth as far as the eye could see through the trees, and they paused only a moment before they rushed forward as one single mass.

Starfire and Raven took flight instantly, Raven struggling not to loose the thread of her spell or release Lust from her bindings. The Robins closed in beneath them like a swarm of ants, and the two women rose higher, until Raven stopped at as far away as she could go without bungling her spell. Again like ants, the Robins began to swarm over one another, uncaring of how many were crushed in the rabid effort to build a tower of earthen flesh to reach their ordained targets.

"You have to hold them off!" Raven told Starfire, "It'll only take one to ruin the spell! This is going to take a minute, and I can't be disturbed. Can you…?"

"It would be my pleasure!" Starfire said eagerly and almost too quickly, her eyes flashing a particularly brilliant shade of green. The expression on her face was not pleasant, and Raven once again felt a hole in the pit of her stomach where the fear resided—the fear that all this new aggression was Starfire displacing something she felt for Raven after the revelation. "This is still my mind—I'm still the powerful one here. These things will regret trying to control me, trying to violate us. There will be **_no_** **_mercy_**!"

"They still look like Robin," Raven reminded her, almost tentatively, "are you sure you can handle it?"

"I no longer see **_Robin's_** face when I look at them," She said grimly, not bothering to spare Raven the slightest glance.

Oh. Right. Raven **_definitely_** regretted asking.

"Is there anything else?" Starfire asked, almost resentfully.

"Be careful." Raven was utterly adamant, and this time Starfire did glance at her. The expression there was a mixture of agony and misery, and it made Raven hurt just to look at it. It seemed to say 'as though you'd care' and that sentiment hurt Raven more than any physical injury she could remember suffering. "I just mean…" she tried to finish her statement, and finally managed, "to die here, in a dream that cannot be naturally awoken from, invites insanity, or worse, in the real world. I couldn't stand to see you hurt."

"**_Too late_**." That was the last thing to pass between them before Starfire began to release all that pent up aggression in the only way that made sense just then.

"GAAAAHHH!" Starfire opened with a truly impressive battle cry as she gathered an enormous starbolt in both hands and projected it directly down in a solid beam that must have been three feet across. The beam struck through the direct center of the conical tower of writhing and crawling Robins working its way toward them, and where it touched, they were destroyed. In the barest flash of an instant, the beam had struck all the way through to the ground, and like a candle plunged into a Chinese lantern, the tower of bodies began to glow with an internal light. The light spread and intensified, finally striking out in solid green beams from nooks and crannies between the bodies, building in pressure and heat with an audible groaning from the mob beneath them. The pressure buildup snapped without warning, and the pile of bodies detonated like the stack of inflammable objects that was all it was before Starfire's fury-driven powers.

Like dirt thrown from the dynamite bombs used to move mountains, Robins and bits of Robins were tossed into the air willy-nilly, and before they had a chance to begin their return trip to the earth they were spawned from, Starfire was already descending into the gap she'd created like a bikini-clad avenging angle, green streaks bleeding from her eyes to form trailing streamers as she rushed into the fray.

Raven, meanwhile, had moved into the final stage of her spell. Her beach towel, which she'd somehow managed to hang onto despite yet another round of happy-fingers with Lust, finally fluttered away on the supernatural wind summoned along with the gross of her power, and she was left in naught but the cut-away one-piece Starfire herself had chosen to place her in. The clouds spun and boiled above her, a vortex forming in the bleak overcast in reaction to the intense forces she was bringing to bear, and as she twisted her palms through a final, exceedingly complex pattern, she thrust her hands forward, and palm-shaped clouds took form directly above her, mimicking the gesture perfectly. Lust looked up with cat-eyes wide, and she saw her doom approaching.

Starfire reaped through the dirt-constructed Robins with great violence, their bloodless bodies shattering and sundering before her unstoppable onslaught. She'd swing a fist, but could not swing fast enough to strike them, for the heat coming off of the starbolts she held in each palm was such that their earthen flesh vaporized before she made contact. Each arm swung through their ranks like a sphere of annihilation, rending them apart in twin paroxysms of unquenchable heat.

She turned to obliterate one flank, only for a new mass to leap upon her back, pawing at her bare flesh and trying to dig their grimy gloves into her scant swimsuit, possibly attempting to strip her. A brief concentration pressed a wave of heat out of her back so intense that they either melted or burst into flame, spreading the scent of scorched earth into the air in great nose-stinging gouts. She found then, as she had noticed a few times now, that her power in this place was magnified enormously, and with an almost manic smile, she struck both glowing hands into the dirt at her feet, creating a expanding green sphere that blew back the Robins on all sides, washing over her harmlessly to clear out a perfect circle around her, leaving her standing in a burnt-black crater.

She had breathing room now, so she focused on her hands, gathering all of her starbolt energy into the smallest possible point in each palm. When each expansive globe of energy had shrunk down to the size of a marble, she focused again, directing a marble to the tip of each index finger. She didn't know if this was going to work, but if it did…

She jabbed out with her right finger, pointing emphatically at the first Robin to dare an advance. The pencil-thin laser punctured his chest as though he hadn't been there, then continued into the crowded and packed Robins beyond, slicing a minute hole through everyone in a perfect line from her pointing finger. Eyes wide with wonder at her own violent invention, Starfire jerked the beam to the side in an expansive sweeping motion, and suddenly the tiny starbolt became a cutting laser of hideous power. Nothing the beam touched could withstand its concentrated force, and Robins were sliced cleanly apart in a descending line that started at mid-chest and ended at waist level. They continued to stride forward for a moment, as yet unaware of their deaths, then tumbled apart, separating wherever the laser had touched them, falling to the ground quickly and in many pieces, along with numerous now-burning trees and most of a boulder that had also felt her power's touch. The other side was advancing, and so she sliced another great wave of them to bits with the marble of green heat on her left index finger, and once again they did not have time to even recognize their destruction before their bisected bodies separated.

It was all for naught, however, as no matter how quickly she destroyed them, more still poured forth from the soil, never-ending tides of them ever advancing, ever approaching, their hands reaching out to grasp, to maul, to paw, eyes ever empty of anything, but faces, each and every one, a perfect mask of Robin himself. Her fury actually slaked by the intense violence she'd wrought, she found herself retreating before their untiring ranks, first on the ground, but then into the air as she was surrounded yet again. Repeating the trick with the pinpoint starbolts, she flew upward, spinning as she discharged both hands downward, creating a rising cone of murder, the lasers severing each and every one of the Robins below her in dozens of places, leaving them to fall to the earth in slices and ribbons like julienned potatoes.

Still they advanced, and the last ranks of whole Robins managed to leap up and grab her by one bare ankle. She lashed out and shattered his head with her foot, he being not near nimble as the 'real' Robin, who'd avoided that same reflexive attack without effort, but still she was dragged back to earth as Robin after Robin latched onto the first, crawling up him like a ladder and weighing her down. They quickly formed a tower of bodies to try and pin her to the earth, and try as she might to burn them away, she simply lacked the strength. She'd spent herself, even in her own mind, and now everything rested with Raven. This was the last she thought on the matter before she was too busy incinerating offending hands and arms to think about anything else.

Raven had finished her necessarily long preparations, and so she spoke the words of her spell.

"**_Durus_**…**_Blandus_**… **_Insapidus_**… **_Moderatus_**… _**Exmovere** **Cancellare**_!" she shouted, her voice gone dark and powerful with the magnificent forces she now wielded. The spell filled her outstretched palms with black energy, and she had only to let it fly to strike down the unnatural amalgamation of drug-induced lust and suppressed teenage sexuality. She paused, though, when she saw the look in Lust's eyes.

"You're going to regret missing this experience!" Lust screeched in that beastly voice, even as she railed against her chains yet again.

"I'll get laid when I'm good and ready, thank you very much!" Raven shouted back, then let loose.

The sphere of power in her hands belched forth a tiny streamer of black energy almost gently, and it floated toward Lust like a feather on the winds. The stretching line of darkness touched Lust, connected her to Raven, and completed the circuit. As a thunderhead spitting forth its brilliant fire, the palm-shaped tower reaching down from the overcast above Raven let loose with a black lightning bolt that struck the young woman, then traveled down the streamer in a jagged line that ended in its incinerating embrace of the chained Lust. Again and again the black lightning struck down the line Raven had formed, each time describing a unique pattern through the air, each time enveloping both Raven and Lust, inverting their colors and leaving them as inky black shapes described by white outlines. On the final strike, Lust vanished, leaving behind a black scorch mark, a wisp of smoke, and absolutely nothing else.

Raven fell from the sky.

Beneath her, Starfire was just about to lash out with another starbolt when her latest assailant disintegrated into dust, and a moment later, so did every other one. She was free of their grip, and she reveled in that freedom for several moments, so incredibly relieved that it was with a smile that she turned to look up above her at where Raven had been acting from. She wasn't there.

A quick search allowed her to spot the slight, pale figure plummeting to the earth, and to her everlasting shame, Starfire hesitated in that moment. Having just been rescued from some unknowable torture, having just been rescued from an army of mindless zombies, having just been rid of a terrible drug-induced insanity, she **_still_** did not act immediately to save Raven. How easy it would be, to simply fail to act, to let Raven plummet to the ground, to have her mind dashed to bits, rendering her vegetative or insensible, removing her forever from competition in the quest for Robin's heart.

It was a **_very_** passing thought, but that it occurred to her at all made her chest ache as she darted in to catch Raven's petite, barely-clothed body in her own bare arms. She had been furious when she found out, when all the dark suspicions clouded her judgment, but now that she'd spent her fury on her opponents, as always with such things, she saw very differently. The thoughts occurring to her now made her want to weep, not murder.

With Raven's limp body safely in her arms, Starfire took up a holding flight position, staring down at the black scorch mark that was all to survive Raven's attack. Particularly, she noted the way the blackness began to quickly spread, consuming everything it touched with an infinite darkness that was more than just darkness. She knew, somehow, that this dream was coming apart at its most basic level, and that if they were still dreaming it when it finished vanishing, they would not enjoy the experience. Or perhaps 'survive' was the word she was looking for. Alone then, utterly alone but for the unconscious empath that she owed everything to, Starfire felt a plea, a prayer even, leave the depths of her heart and rocket towards the heavens.

"Please…" she prayed, "Please let us awaken from this nightmare… don't let this be the end… not before I've settled things with her… not before I've told him. Please… help us."

--Robin--

The swirling came to a complete halt so suddenly that it took Robin's dazzled eyes a moment to notice the change. The flames and lightning all stood perfectly still, as though frozen in mid flicker, stopped in mid-dance, and it was simply the most unnatural thing he'd ever witnessed. Beneath the mass of fire and lightning was Starfire, her face contorted in the most pitiable expression of agonized pleading Robin had ever seen. The life sign monitors were more intense than ever, but in that moment, he no longer cared. He was ending this **_now_**.

"Computer, override safety protocol!" he snapped, barely managing to wrench his eyes from the spine-tingling sight of motionless 3-dimensional lightning.

"AUTHORIZATION?" typed itself on the screen in response to his urgent verbal command. Robin proceeded to rattle of an incredibly complex series of letters and numbers that constituted his override code, along with his voice-print. It was too easy to imitate voices these days, and codes could be tortured out of people, so he'd insisted it be both in the security specifications he gave Cyborg. The big man had seemed strangely aloof on the whole subject of security, and come to think of it, this was the first time Robin had used his code. He didn't have any more time to think about it, however, as he finished the absurdly long sequence.

"ACCESS DENIED, INCORRECT CODE." The computer stated indifferently, and Robin nearly choked on his tongue, so intense was his gasp of disbelief.

"That's **_impossible_**!" he shouted in frustration, "I memorized that code **_perfectly_**!" and he punctuated his protest by slamming a fist against the side of the computer terminal. As though to answer, the computer began running a protocol labeled 'ah-ah-ah!' with an emoticon of a smiling face shaking an admonishing finger at him.

"Now, now Robin," a video of Cyborg came to life on the screen, giving him a condescending glare, "you know I'm the only one who works on the computers. Those codes are only effective on the security system, so don't go tryin' to mess with mah babies anymore!" and the video ended just as abruptly as it began.

"Damnit Cyborg!" he screamed out his frustration, staring in disbelief at the little blinking prompt that flashed out 'access denied' over and over again, "and you call **_me_** arrogant! ARGG!"

Robin turned from the computer in a semi-panicked huff, gazing once more at Starfire. Her face was a frozen portrait of desperate need, and just looking at it made his heart bleed in a way he'd never experienced before in his admittedly short life. That clinched it.

"DENY THIS!" He shouted, and turned on his heel, driving his fist at the computer terminal with the same punch he used to shatter cinderblocks in training. The blow whistled in like a hammer's fall, struck the metal of the computer casing with a resounding **_clang_**… and rebounded like he'd just punched a brick wall.

"JESUS **_FUCK_**!" he shouted in pain and frustration, shaking his hand in a futile attempt to mitigate the agony reaching through the bones. Only the metal plates in the fingers and backing of the glove, the ones he used like hidden brass knuckles in combat, had kept him from shattering his hand on the plated steel of the computer casing.

Okay, so maybe **_punching_** it hadn't been the brightest idea—he admitted to himself silently as he muttered out a string of further curses and slipped a small bomb out of his belt—but he'd been caught up in the drama of the moment, and shattering the computer with his fist would have looked really cool. He stepped away from the bomb slightly, covered his ears in an easy, confident motion, and turned his head, letting the tiny shaped charge do the rest. There was a flash and a bang, then the computer caved, melted, and burst into flame the next moment. Robin couldn't suppress a certain grim satisfaction at the violent explosion considering the lingering ache in his hand, and he grinned even further as he listened to the stasis machines die as their safety mechanisms cut in. In a moment, neither woman was frozen anymore.

The black flames were the first to move, drawing toward Raven suddenly and with no apparent cause. Then, a swirling black sphere belched forth from Starfire's head, her whole body arching for a moment as it spewed from her skull, floated languidly through the air collecting the stray energy in a swirling pull not unlike the flush of a toilet, and plunged into Raven's skull with much the same body-contorting effect it had had on Starfire. Instantly both women were tossing and turning on their hospital beds, as though in the throes of a terrible nightmare, and even as Raven's quickly calmed, Starfire's intensified. Terrified for her, Robin leapt forward to her side, shaking her shoulder forcefully to rouse her from the terror of her dreams.

"AHHHIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" her nightmare bled forth in the form of a scream as she sat up suddenly with enough force to throw Robin back against Raven's nearby bed, and he barely caught himself as he watched her eyes flash open. Her hands were flailing in panic, and he reached out to grab one, to try and get some sense into her.

The moment he gripped her wrist, her eyes focused exclusively on him, and rather than the calming effect he'd hoped for, she seemed to panic even further, her eyes going wider than ever, then flinching away completely as she stiffened in horror at his presence. He had enough time to be devastated by her terrified expression before a starbolt blasted out of the hand whose wrist he held, nailed him in the chest, and carried him across the room like he weighed nothing. He slammed into the far wall, the air driven from his body, and the starbolt finally dissipated, allowing him to slide down the side of the room and hit the floor.

"Oh dear," Starfire said, taking a second look at what she had so hastily smote, "Robin?" But his consciousness was already dipping down into the deep black.

--End Notes--

HPV—the single most disgusting image I recall from those horror-picture-shows they put on in high school health. If ever there was a better reason to practice safe sex, I don't know what it is. I mean, at least AIDS kills you eventually—you have to LIVE with genital warts. UG.

Beacherific—I went to the beach in the last weeks of the summer, and I really wanted to do a fic recently focusing on the Titans at the beach for a day. An old idea, yes, but one I believe I have a very great take on. It would involve the Fearsome Five from the old comic books (they ripped Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo from these five for the show, then dropped the two others, possibly because both were even more homicidal than the three they actually kept!) and epic amounts of comedy and innuendo. I may yet write it, but all in good time. I did this scene to tide me over.

Speedy—how many of you reading this have seen Speedy in a detailed fight scene before? I haven't seen any, so I took the opportunity to be as creative as possible, and I think I did a decent job. I tell ya though, that scene took for friggen ever to write, as without much in the way of pointers from the show or comics, I had to make up sweet gizmos and ass-kicking techniques from scratch by and large. Anyway, watch out for him to battle an actual super-villain later—I always felt he got an incredibly raw deal in Titans east, especially considering how he held his own against Robin in Winner Takes All, and its about time someone gave him a good treatment. I just figure that can be me.

Big Dream—Okay, do you get it yet? I know it was incredibly convoluted, but I went to great pains to explain everything as plainly as possible. Neither Raven nor Starfire is any kind of slut or whore… they're just **_alive_**, and as such, are subject to certain urges when under the influence of certain chemicals. Anyway, we're off the subject of Rape and Sex for quite a little while now that the drugs are in the past, so anyone made uncomfortable by those things can breath a great big sigh of relief.

I took untold liberties with powers and fighting, mostly because… I can. They never make Star powerful enough, and Raven never casts enough actual magic, and so I took the opportunity to play with both concepts for a while. Hope you liked it, it was a joy to create. The fighting in general was the focus of this, mostly to show that I can write detailed fight scenes, I'd been getting some requests on private channels to do just that, and I hate to disappoint. Besides, it was time for a change of pace, just like right now. Which brings me to—

Future—Chapter 6: Heart to Heart to Heart. I'll give you one guess what this one is going to be about. Drama fans rejoice.

Review. Review. Review. Review.

How am I supposed to compete with those hacks who get multi-repeat 'me too' reviews if you guys don't help me out? If you like the story, make it stand out from the crowd with a nice, robust chapter-review ratio! I've been slacking a little on review responses, but no more, I promise! If you leave an e-mail address and an actual idea or question in the review, you'll get a personalized thanks from me!


	6. Heart to Heart to Heart p1

To my readers both loyal and new

Hello hello, and may I say, it's good to be back. College life is slowly grinding away at my soul, but on the bleak side, I've taken to my one and only addictive vice to mitigate the pain—MMPORGs. Wowcrack is the main reason this chapter is so long in coming, and you'll be gratified to know that I've sworn off of it until the second mid-term is over in an effort to save my grade. Weather or not that will translate into a new post sometime before the end of the month or not remains to be seen, but hell, I **_will_** try.

According to my exalted fiction writing professor, (she's a literary fiction buff, and I like sci-fi/fantasy, so we don't get along that well) as well as the entirety of my class, my one major flaw is a penchant for overwriting. I have to agree, especially since several of you have commented on that same fact, so I've been working an effort to tone down the redundant descriptions and overpowering language a little. It's slow going, seeing as how I have to work against a lifetime of self-training, but I think I've made a little progress, and input here would be much appreciated. But hey, I'll stop bending your eyes on this spooge and let you get on with the story. Never been a huge fan of drama myself, but I must admit, I'm rather proud of this. Just wait for part two… oh man… just wait.

Chapter 6: Heart to Heart to Heart: part 1

Titan's Tower Med-Bay

As the sound of Robin's body falling limp to the med-bay floor died in the air, Starfire finally came back to herself. As though the enormity of what she'd just done quickened her return from blind panic, her flailing stopped, her eyes focused, and she gazed in shock at the limp form crumpled in the corner of the room.

"Oh dear," She said, because she couldn't think of anything better in the face of what had just happened. As though to protest the fact that she'd just escaped panic, her heart refused to explode back into activity again, keeping its calm, plodding pace. Starfire was just too tired, and as the fear of what she'd done sizzled numbly along her spine, she clawed herself the rest of the way out of the hospital bed. "Robin?" she asked, her frazzled brain not immediately registering the fact that he probably wasn't in any condition to answer.

Eventually, Star got her bare feet over the edge of the bed, put her weight onto them, and promptly collapsed into a heap on the scorched and pitted tiles. It was warm against the bare flesh of her legs and arms where she lay crumpled, her muscles all gone flaccid after her impetuous attempt to move them, and she found that all she could do was stare helplessly over at Robin's limp body.

"What…?" she asked in dim surprise, expressing only the barest shadow of the fear she should be feeling right now.

"That would be… the lingering affect of my spell," Raven's voice answered her from someplace unseen, and if Starfire could have jumped in surprise, she'd probably be clinging to the ceiling by now. "The geas of austerity is a comprehensive hex… it'll be a little while before the power dissipates, you should feel normal after that."

"You… did **_this_** to me?" and Starfire's voice was without inflection, though somehow still conveyed an air of stung betrayal.

"Yes. You'd be thanking me if you were thinking straight." Raven's voice was also flat, and together, their twin droning was almost funny… or funny tragic, at least.

"You… You… I wish I could see you right now… so I could… could…" Starfire was utterly incapable of expressing the anger trying hopelessly to flare up at that moment. If pressed, she probably wouldn't even be able to say **_why_** she wanted to become angry, so jumbled were the snips of memory and dream coursing through her magic-addled brain.

"Yes…" Raven whispered, interpreting some command, the compelled response catching Starfire off guard. She was as yet consciously unaware of Raven's affliction, demonstrated somewhat more fully when she gave a tiny shriek as Raven's power hefted her gently into the air and floated her over onto the mystic's hospital bed. When she set down, she was certainly able to see Raven, though this probably hadn't been what she meant.

The bed was relatively tiny, a single at best, and unsuited to more than one occupant at a time. Thus, when Starfire's exhausted shell was set down next to Raven's, the result was… rather a tight fit. In the final distribution, Starfire's left arm was trapped under her body as she lay on her left side, her right arm falling across Raven's stomach as she lay on her back. The alien's nose was about two inches from her friend's right cheek, and the shock of their sudden proximity seemed to bring some sense back into Starfire.

"Raven… what has happened to us? Why…"

"Shhh," Raven hissed her friend to silence out of pure exhaustion, not even the drug's grip on her brain able to wring a properly immediate response out of her. "Just… just try and touch my forehead. It'll be… faster…"

Starfire's eyes went wide at the agony written across Raven's face so openly, its usual expression hiding any hint of such emotions. Taking the cue from her friend's obvious analogue to the pain she herself was feeling, Starfire didn't question, she didn't even hesitate. Gathering what little strength she could, she managed to drag her free right hand slowly up Raven's body, utterly unable to actually lift it. Eventually, she reached the other woman's face, pressing her fingers against a space just below her soft midnight locks.

Immediately there was a reaction, both women jerking with the press of power from Raven, bodies stiffening and shaking as energy jumped between them. There was a flash of black behind Starfire's eyes, the play of obsidian lightning along her fingers, and a long moment of tension, then nothing. Both women went limp, more utterly limp than ever before, bringing a still that lasted quite a long time.

Under the circumstances, that is, after considering the dire knowledge that had just been passed on to the Tamaranian, one might only have wished the still could have lasted longer, and given them some small respite. No such luck.

"Oh… my… no…" Starfire whispered in a breathless mumble, as the tears started to flow freely down her cheeks. The night in its entirety had been illuminated to her by Raven's dark power, no miserable detail left out, no heartbreaking fact absent. As though that weren't enough, the spell Raven had cast in their dreams chose that moment to begin fading, so that the true horror of what was happening had no buffer to break upon before striking her in the heart. "No… why? Why? Raven **_why_**?" the slow tears developed into harsh sobs, a wracking burst of misery punctuating the staccato breaths of weeping every so often as Starfire devolved beyond further words.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I… I wish… Star… this was never… I'm so sorry," Raven could find no voice to properly face Starfire's inconsolable hurt, so staggeringly terrible was this pain. She'd prepared for this eventuality several times, she'd planned what she'd say, how she'd apologize, beg for forgiveness, promise to work without rest for some kind of solution, but it all fled her mind now. In the face of Starfire's weeping, no mere words could possibly hold enough apology, no explanation could ever be enough to mitigate the hell pouring out of her eyes and wringing her body.

"I do not understand Raven," Star was barely coherent through her tears, "how can this be happening?"

"I wish I knew," Raven answered, her voice gone hollower than it had ever been as she heard Star begin to ask the very same question she'd dwelt upon for endless miserable hours of her recent life. "I've had plenty of time to wonder about it, **_too_** **_much_** time, and I still don't understand… can't explain… how this… all this time…"

Her voice trailed off into silence, and the mask of pain contorting her face gave the absolute lie to her emotionless tone. Her breathing quickened, and she bit her lip, betraying more than Starfire had seen from her in a long time, and somehow, this was the catalyst that snapped the alien's agonized mental paralysis. Like some kind of twisted flight from her own misery, Starfire latched onto Raven's pain with a depth of warm compassion borne from the fires of this terrible revelation.

"Oh my…" Starfire whispered through choking, slow tears as she realized the full implications of what she'd finally learned, "Raven… how could you?"

Raven's heart froze in that instant, her powers too degraded for her to feel the compassion radiating from Starfire, even considering their proximity, and instead she took the words she'd always feared to hear in the only way she'd ever expected them to be meant. Like a block of ice under of sledgehammer, Raven's aching heart detonated into a billion pieces, her body, rigid as always, sprang stiff as a steel rod, she gasped once, then her whole form followed her crumbling heart.

"I… I wish I knew how I could… how I could possibly make this better…" her corpse voice spoke, "if you want me to leave… I'll go. I never meant…"

Starfire's piercing gasp, wet with her tears, cut Raven's broken submission short, "No, Never!" and quite to Raven's wide-eyed shock, Starfire gathered her dwindling strength and wrapped both arms around her, pulling them forcefully chest to chest, pressing her tearing eyes into Raven's leotard shoulder as she choked down another sob. "I could not imagine being a Titan without you with us!" and the redhead's voice was a startling mix of iron and silk, an envenerating draught of feeling that, along with the powerful embrace, drove the drowning ice water mercilessly from Raven's soul.

"My words were to be: how could you… how could possibly endure this **_pain_**?" Starfire went on, her slow tears still punctuated by gags and sniffs as her initial, knee-jerk explosion of misery faded in the face of Raven's exhaustively drawn-out nightmare. "How could you face this, face it so long, all by yourself, never saying a thing? I feel it now, I feel it mauling at my heart… and yet you… you withstood this… how? And… why?"

Starfire went very still, and Raven, if possible, was even more motionless. Neither woman so much as passed a whisper of breath as that question squeezed between them and began to fester and writhe, the drug compulsion gripping Raven's mind forcing her to break out in a sweat as she unconsciously resisted giving the one and only answer. It was the single correct answer, and it was the whole and complete truth, and if Starfire didn't believe it, if she couldn't accept the truth, that was it. The urge to cook up a lie that might be more believable was intense, but the drugs proved to be her master yet again, and Raven let out her breath in a sigh as her resistance crumbled, and she committed her future to the craps shoot that was total honesty.

"I couldn't hurt you, Starfire," Raven's voice was heavy with her own pain and miserable resignation, but her release was nothing compared to the spasm from Starfire. The moment the words touched her ears, a wash of combined relief and anguish wrung her body, the experience transmitting back to Raven as Starfire gripped her with an inhuman strength and fresh tears poured into the dark woman's shoulder.

Starfire had expected that answer, had **_known_** in her heart that there could be no other, but this certainty had not stopped her of-late paranoid mind from devising all manner of nightmarish reasons for Raven to keep her secret. The terror that Raven had been doing it to deceive her while she lay her designs for Robin, or that she'd endured her own personal heartbreak only for the sanctity of the team, silently resenting Starfire all along, had both burned treacherously within the young alien. With their death came a relief so pointed that it even overcame her misery, however briefly, and escaped in the form of a crushing embrace, even as Raven continued to justify herself, not realizing how unnecessary it was.

"These feelings… they surprised me… I mean… I never meant to feel them…" Raven picked her words carefully, "and when I realized at last what had happened… I think you can imagine what a shock it was… you know, as the implications occurred to me." Starfire snorted involuntarily through her tears as she interpreted the morbid joke with none of her usual misunderstanding. Raven waited a hard moment, then went on in a much more pained tone, "Oh Starfire I… I **_couldn't_** tell you… I couldn't **_do_** that to you, to Robin I… I just couldn't! I knew… I knew already then how you felt about him… how you probably felt about each other… and I knew that **_I_** had no place in any of that! I tried to stop it… tried to put those feelings away… because I knew I could never express them… not without… without **_this_**… and I didn't **_want_** this. Please believe that I'd never want this nightmare… not for you and Robin. If that meant I had to bare it alone… I was… willing to accept it."

"Mmmmm…" Starfire moaned a long, aching sigh into Raven's shoulder, then finally managed to lift her head and turn puffy eyes to meet the other woman's slowly tearing set. Lying side by side, face to face, their shared pain was a tangible thing, a tender, pulsing boil of emotion that had come into existence despite whatever valiantly torturous efforts Raven had made to prevent it. Shaking her head slowly side to side, Starfire projected her weak denial to the room.

"I… I… I lack the words…" Starfire admitted, her bleak mask frozen in aching shame, "What you did… what you attempted… was the effort of a true friend… and it is I who should apologize for ever, **_ever_**, considering you a betrayer." Raven's own face softened perceptibly as this, her heart fluttering with life again, if only faintly. "But I… I cannot believe that this is happening… that any of this could be true… or that you had to accept what you have borne. I wish… I wish…" she choked on new tears, her pain blossoming anew at what she was trying to get out, "I only wish I could say that you… that your sacrifice… your suffering… were not necessary. I wish I could say that I would have wanted to know right away, to know immediately that this problem had come to be! But to my shame…" she trailed off, crying freely again, and not at any pain Raven had caused her, but rather, because she recognized a failure in herself that was almost as shocking and frightening. "To my great shame!" she shouted to overpower her own tears, "I truly wish I had never learned of this! I wish this pain had not come to me, that I was not condemned to suffer from what you tried to contain! Raven… Raven why is this happening… how can this be happening… what in this world could make me wish such a terrible thing…?"

"Oh Star… Star… don't cry like that… please don't…" Raven's words were a scarcely usual whisper of utter compassion as she watched her dear friend torture herself over the kind of selfish feelings no mortal being could possibly have not felt in her situation. "I… I never wanted you to know about this…" and she managed to take the initiative and clutch Starfire back to her shoulder, sopping up the tears with the dry side of her leotard now, "I did everything I could… tried everything I could to keep this locked away… and I failed. I guess no one could have predicted that something like this would happen… but that doesn't excuse my failure. No one can blame you for anything that's taken place here… and you shouldn't feel guilty… not over something as natural as hating this situation."

Her soothing words surprised even her, though actually, she was probably the last person who'd have expected such maternal compassion from herself. As she finished speaking them, the room fell to silence besides the slow weeping of Starfire on her shoulder and the slow crackling of exposed electrical wires in the devastated room around them. Raven had no mind for either as she felt the slow drain of misery siphoning away between them. No one could sustain the concentrated emotional force they'd been suffering, not for any length of time, and as she wept, Starfire's immediate agony burned down to a dull smolder of pain… the same minor ache that tormented Raven whenever she failed to put the problem from her mind.

As she'd said, the pain of their situation was not new to Raven, and now that she was more or less certain Starfire was going to pull through without hating her forever, the much more immediate terror and agony that loosing her friendship would have meant drained fully out of her as well. Thus, Raven's eyes dried out quite quickly, and she was able to concentrate on slowly rubbing Starfire's back as the alien struggled to cope herself. For some unknowable length of time, Raven let Starfire weep her agony onto her shoulder, wishing futily that she had some words of hope or support that wouldn't sound as blatantly false as they'd quite obviously be.

Then, something did occur to Raven's bone-tired mind, and she decided that if she could grant Starfire none of the comfort she so longingly wished to give, she could at least provide the woman with what she owed her… an explanation. Gathering a memory of all the times Starfire had longingly begged 'why?' and 'how?' Raven found that she could speak, the drug reacting better than she'd hoped to the trickery.

"It was last Christmas," Raven started, and Starfire jerked to attentiveness without raising her eyes from the other woman's shoulder, "I guess that's when I first realized what was happening… or at least when I was positive we were definitely in trouble. For all I really know, it could have been building for a long time before that… I've never exactly been the most honest with myself about my feelings, after all… but last Christmas was definitely the catalyst… the trigger that made it impossible to deny."

"Last Christmas…" Starfire whispered into Raven's shoulder, "Robin gave you a book." It was clear from the way she said it that Starfire remembered nothing more significant than that from a day that would probably live forever in her friend's memory.

"Heh," Raven chuckled humorlessly, "It was a little more complicated than that. I had never celebrated Christmas before… not the Christian version, nor even the secularized one that people all over earth tend to practice… so it was just as new to me as it was to you, I suppose."

Both of them fell silent as they recalled Starfire's glee at learning of the American tradition of friendship, family, and generosity that was celebrated so widely in the dead of every winter. Both of them also thought back to Raven's more than mild disdain for the whole concept, despite the (not that she'd have admitted it) huge amount of attachment she'd formed to all of her friends in the long months they'd been living and working together. Beast Boy, of course, demanded that they all exchange gifts. Robin, as was rare for BB's suggestions, readily agreed, and that had been that.

"I suppose I've never been the most forthcoming…" Raven understated badly, "but you all managed to surprise me with what you decided to give me."

"You were certainly the most difficult to do the 'Christmas shopping' for," Starfire almost muttered, and her tone was showing heartening recovery from the husk it had become.

"Yes, well, that's not the point," Raven frowned, then sighed, "The point is that, of everyone, Robin… Robin did something **_special_**."

"**_All_** were impressed by his gifts most of all… he acts very 'tough,' but that Christmas, a different side of him came to the surface." Raven was suddenly quite shocked by the quiet insight Starfire was showing, as though the pain had burnt away her bubbly façade and revealed the mind beneath.

"Uhh… yes, exactly. You recall that he got me a book… but what I managed, **_barely_**, to keep quiet… was that it was an incredibly special book, a magical book, actually. I don't know how he found out… I'll probably **_never_** know how he found out… but that book… I'd wanted that book since I was six years old. Every birthday until I left Azar, I begged my mother to get it for me… I **_begged_** her… but there was never really any chance of me ever getting it. But Robin… I didn't even ask him… I still haven't gotten him to tell me how he found out about it, but I wouldn't leave him alone until he told me how he got his hands on it…

Christmas Morning: Residential Floor Corridor

"Raven, wait up!" Robin called down the hall at a dark retreating silhouette. She froze at the sound, as though caught with her hand in the cookie jar, then slowly half-turned to present the young man with her profile, her cowl thrown back, her arms crossed, and her frame set at a surly angle. She was frowning. "Where are you going? It's our turn to open your presents… you can't just leave now."

"I'm sorry, but I'm really not in the mood for any of this right now," and there was a telling tick in her left cheek, tipping her perceptive leader off right away.

"Well hell," and Robin's rather concerned expression transformed into a smile, "If you're afraid we're not going to like them, of course you're free to take off, but after Starfire's gifts, I don't know what you have to be nervous about." His huge smile challenged her noncommittal frown relentlessly, until the barest suggestion of a grin touched her lips as well.

"That's not very nice… you know she's still getting used to things here on Earth." They were both joking, of course, as only a true jerk would have gotten on Starfire's case about what she'd chosen to give as gifts. Robin, for instance, had managed to smile quite genuinely at his gift, once he got over the fact that he only had two arms and his hand-knit sweater had three. Cyborg had accepted his novelty fruitcake with all the grace anyone with cybertronic strength could muster considering that it's 2 by 11 **_foot_** form weighed so much that it sent his arm motors into a fit of whirring and hissing protest the moment she unloaded it on him. Beast Boy… well, Beast Boy had **_looked_** like he was about to make a wisecrack about the wicked battleaxe that was bigger than he was, but a sufficiently dirty look from Raven and Robin at the same time (Cy was too busy eyeing his fruitcake with an odd mixture of dread and avarice) cut him off and limited him to a false smile as he tried in vain to budge its intense mass. Raven, meanwhile, managed to make out like a bandit, receiving a gorgeously carved ebony hairbrush with nothing more than a prerequisite promise that she'd let Starfire comb her hair for her next time they hung out. Indeed, after that showing, one wouldn't have thought Raven had a thing to worry about… but that didn't stop her, oh no.

"Listen I… I just really don't want to be there. I'll be fine in my room for the day… you guys just enjoy yourselves." Her tone left no room for persuasion, and Robin, by this time, knew better than to try. He simply shook his head slowly, giving her a 'you're going to regret missing this,' look that might have actually stung her a little if she'd been less determined to escape.

"Okay, okay… but before you go, here, this is for you." He held out a small rectangular package wrapped in the same brown paper that had covered all his gifts so far, and immediately Raven eyed it with a caution borne of experience.

"Another one… oh **_rapture_**…" but her deadpan words didn't stop her from reaching out and taking the proffered gift. She gave it a leery stare, and Robin burst into a soft chuckle at the sight.

"Oh man… don't worry Raven, I have a feeling you'll be pleasantly surprised by this one." Not that it would be that hard, was the unspoken addition to that prediction.

Besides the comb, which was wonderful, Raven had received the same scratch-built mp3 player that Cyborg had cooked up for each of them. It was wafer-thin and had 30 times the storage space of the average iPod… and it would probably be a bookmark considering all the use Raven had for it. But at least it had been a crafted project… Beast Boy had given her a plushy blue kitten and a gift certificate to Barns & Noble… showing all the thoughtfulness of 'girls like stuffed animals,' 'Raven likes blue,' and 'Raven reads a lot.' She still felt more than a little shocked that he'd remembered her favorite color, and while she was underwhelmed, she figured it'd do to lay off the little punk a little for the time being. At least until he found some new way to infuriate or annoy her with his thoughtless antics.

"Well, aren't you going to open it?" Robin prompted her. He had the most self-satisfied grin imaginable, and Raven felt her hackles rise slightly in dread anticipation of what could have gotten the normally dour detective so please with himself. By the size and shape, it was probably a book, and while she figured that was probably a good start, she couldn't imagine it was all that impressive… at least not by her own exalted standards.

Sick of his smile, she tore open a corner and ripped the paper swiftly down the spine, revealing the title. Her eyes glazed over it once, then shifted up to present an unimpressed half-smirk to the guy who'd chased her down to give it to her. Something occurred to her, and her eyes trailed slowly down to look at the title a second time. Then she read it a third time, then a fourth, her breath quickening as she suddenly began to blink quite rapidly. Her eyes flashed up to take in Robin's ever-widening smile, and she inhaled sharply as though to speak, only to huff it out as words completely failed her.

"I thought you might like it. Anyway, you enjoy that, I'm going back to the others. It's almost time to watch the claymation Christmas movie marathons… never been a Christmas when I haven't. Merry Christmas Raven." He began to walk away, still smiling most insufferably, when a swift hand caught him by the shoulder and twirled him around again. Bewildered, he looked back at Raven's shock-widened eyes, seeing them… shine and glitter with moisture?

"How? And… just… **_how_**?" it wasn't the kind of tone one argued with, and Robin had only to notice the uncommon physicality of the encounter to know he'd touched a great deal deeper than he'd expected to.

"It'd ruin things to just **_admit_** how I came up with it," he said as he slid his eyes to the hand on his shoulder to get them away from the start of tears still holding back in her eyes. "Let's just say… a little birdie told me." She obviously wasn't satisfied by that, but now Robin was asserting himself right back, and she'd get nothing more there. "As for just **_how_** I got my hands on it… it's a long story. The trail lead through Batman, then to the Justice League and a certain arch-mage named Dr. Fate. It just so happens he had a copy, and I managed to negotiate it into my possession. Fair enough?"

"NO!" the word was snapped more than shouted, but it was still much more forceful than he'd been expecting, and he flinched away from the harshness. "Robin, this isn't the kind of thing you can just buy from someone with plain old money. How in the word did you get Dr. Fate to give it to you?"

"Oh… that…" and Robin looked properly embarrassed now, bringing a thrill of fear to Raven. One thing that could be used to pay for magic books was bits of one's soul… and while she didn't think it was likely…. "We talked about it and he explained all that mumbo-jumbo about magical value transfer. We agreed in the end that a little old-fashioned drudgery would do the trick. He was kind enough to teleport me to his tower and back… but it was still quite a few late nights. But really wasn't too much to do to get my hands on the perfect gift for a good friend, so don't worry about it."

"Robin…" and Raven was shaking her head, unable to calculate right off hand just how much sweat and toil would be necessary to buy a book this rare. It boggled her mind that anyone would do that… much less do it for **_her_**… and suddenly she found herself looking at Robin with new eyes. Eyes that were somehow clearer… as though she'd been looking at him through a veil the entire time she'd known him, and was really **_looking_** at him for the first time.

"I said don't worry about it. Have a nice day Raven." And he smiled at her rather wanly, then turned and walked back toward the common room.

Raven watched him walk away, then glanced at her book, then back at him again. She stared wide-eyed as something began to grow within her, her pulse quickening in an ever-expanding runaway explosion of motion, picking up and up until it was pounding powerfully through every inch of her body. Her cheeks began to color, flushing a damning crimson that no eye could have mistaken. In a sweep of motion, Raven pulled her hood up and whisked down the hall in a swirl of cloak, nearly ran to the first corner in the tower corridor, then ducked behind it and pressed herself against the wall.

Clutching the book to her chest, she let her legs give way as they so desperately wanted to, and she slid down the wall to the floor, her knees folding up in front of her to help her hold the book tight. A smile that hadn't graced her face since the deep innocence of her youth sprang freely into life as the tears that had been threatening so long came to life on her cheeks. A black stain began to spread along the wall behind her, and where it touched the paint peeled off in spirals and zigzags, revealing the bare white beneath the metal grey. She pulled her book up again, tearing the rest of the wrapping off in a blaze of black power, then snapping it open and paging through it, as though to make sure she really had what she thought she had. After a moment, she smashed it shut again and squeezed it back to her chest, letting her eyes wander to the ceiling. It was a long moment of wonder before she realized exactly what she had to do.

In a swirl of black power, she was instantly back at one of the common room's two hallway entrances, and she stepped blithely in to find Robin and thank him with all the proper levels of overweening gratitude and justifiable amazement. That this would give her another chance to test the sensation that the very thought of him was suddenly bringing her was merely coincident to her need to thank him as he deserved… of course. No sooner had she stepped into the common room, however, than did she stop, jarred back to reality by the sight that greeted her. Her heart went cold in one drenching deluge of recognition, driving out every warm floaty sensation that had so completely circumvented her natural caution.

There in the common room, Starfire was quite completely draped around Robin as she helped him into his three-armed sweater, still thanking him in no modest or restrained way for the gorgeously master-crafted ten-inch snow-globe of the Tamaran Royal Palace he'd given her. Just like that, Raven's quick advance turned into an equally speedy retreat, and as Starfire caught the movement and glanced her way, it transformed into a flush of power that vanished her from the common room and deposited her in her own private space.

Staggering to the nearest wall, she collapsed into it, pounding a fist against it in absent frustration as she tried to figure out just exactly what had taken place here. Her body had been running on emotional auto-pilot for a full minute now, and she needed time for her mind to catch up. When she did finally get a grip on what had happened… when she finally shed the last layers of denial and self-deception… when she at last accepted that an impossible injustice had sprung upon her and her dearest allies from beyond the veil of comfortable friendship… it would no longer be quite such a merry Christmas.

Present: Titan's Tower Med-Bay

"And so I decided… well… I decided that the only thing I could do was keep quiet." Raven brought her story to a close slowly, the gravity of the subject weighing down on her hoarse voice. "After all, I was pretty clearly the only one who had a problem with the situation as it was, and if I never said anything… if I just left things as they were… that would have been it. No one would ever have known the difference."

The broken down room dropped into another one of its deep silences, Raven's dully explanatory drone flattening out into nothing. For some time, there was only the sound of sniffling, unsteady breaths. It was Starfire who broke that silence.

"Except… **_you_** knew," she filled in the glaringly absent conclusion in the barest whisper, and Raven grimaced in a mixture of fresh pain and bright-faced embarrassment. "I… I cannot pretend to understand what you put yourself through… but I… I think I want to… that I **_need_** to thank you. You… suffered much… for me… but all in vain I fear…" her voice was choked with the start of tears yet again, and Raven returned to a slow rubbing motion on her friend's back as she tried to massage some of the pain out of her.

"Please… please… I **_don't_** deserve your gratitude," Raven had to make this point clear, "I probably don't even deserve your friendship anymore. And," she had to override Starfire's protests against this last point, "I just wish… I just wish I knew what we were going to do…"

"An excellent question."

Both girls jerked in surprise as this third, cold, even voice intruded on their incredibly intimate conversation. As one, their minds fled from the subject of their shared pain, even as their eyes simultaneously flashed down to the foot of the bed, there to see a shadow-draped figure that neither had had the presence of mind to notice before he'd spoken. Caught short, Starfire released Raven and turned to face that inky silhouette, while the paralyzed woman could only lay in silent, burning embarrassment as the object of their mutual desire reentered the scene.

He was crouching, tip-toes to the foot of the bed's frame, perfectly balanced on the inch-wide bar as steely, calculating eyes took in the two women. Neither had any clue how long he'd been conscious and listening, but both feared the absolute worst, and for a long time, neither could gather the courage to even look him in the eye, much less say anything. Neither of them cared to realize that'd he'd known more than either of them had just revealed for more than a day now, and had been dealing with it in his own tumultuous manner. Instead, all three of them allowed the uncomfortable silence to stretch out, each woman fairly writhing with desire to flee Robin's presence, yet neither having any means to manage it.

"I'd guess we have a lot to talk about… don't we?" Robin asked rather rhetorically, breaking that numb quiet as his unflinching gaze bore into each girl. Despite herself, Raven felt the blessed release of a new, true question unclench the drug's grip from her brain, and in a wash of relief, could not hold her tongue in check.

"**_That_** would be the understatement of the **_century_**."

* * *

Future—H2H2H part 2: So the ladies have come to and understanding… of a sort… though how things are going to pan out friendship-wise are still anyone's guess. Robin is coming on like the offended party, which, in a very real way, he is. Starfire just realized her best friend has it as bad for her heartthrob as she does, and what's worse, she's been suffering in silence over those feelings for ages in an effort to protect her friend. Divided feelings? You bet! Raven more or less got over the misery of the situation a while ago, but now she's got to deal with the fact that her every effort has come to naught, and she may yet loose not only her best friend, but also a guy she's utterly hard-up over. What's an author to do with such a volitale situation? Why, have a god damn party, what else? So, tune in next time (hopefully quite soon) for the dramatic fallout! 


	7. Heart to Heart to Heart p2

This is… oh no. This is… no… I just… no. I mean, when you've finished with something this great, what can you really say except, "go read it!"? I can honestly say "it's so good I considered making it the end" because I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write this story better than this. The start is a tad dull, but the climax… my good God… just get started already.

Chapter 7 (6-2): Heart to Heart to Heart part 2

Titan's Tower Med-bay

"**_That_** would be the understatement of the **_century_**."

Robin didn't bother to answer Raven's little wisecrack, and the expressively exhausted stare he turned on her the next moment made her regret making it more than any reprimand he could have spoken. Starfire just looked happy for him to have his attention elsewhere, as until that moment he'd been staring at her with so much unspoken emotion that it had almost been painful. As the emotions twisted and rippled around the devastated hospital room then, Robin ended the silence before it could become any more uncomfortable.

"Well!" he snapped, causing both women to jerk in shock at the sudden noise. Without elaborating, he sprang backwards off of the bed frame, executing a neat backflip that brushed his boot toes along the ceiling, then sticking the landing with Olympic precision. The motion drew admiring glances from both women, and Robin was gratified that neither were the naked hunger that'd caused so many problems just a day past. "Come on, this mess isn't going to sort itself out." At the mention of messes, something seemed to occur to him, and he glanced quickly from Starfire to Raven and a few times. "And… uh… come to think of it… how is it that Starfire is…?"

"Normal?" Raven supplied an adjective as she answered his question, though even as she said it she knew why Robin hadn't. There was nothing normal about the grief-stricken, red-eyed, painfully subdued creature languishing withdrawn as a shriveled blossom under Robin's questioning gaze. "Some… weird stuff happened Robin. I guess you could probably tell that much," she caught herself as she recalled how utterly blasted the room was, "but I don't think either of us really wants to say a lot more than that. You're going to have to make due with 'magic,' for the time being… she's cured, and she won't be freaking out on you anymore."

"Well, that's a relief!"

"Freaking out?"

Robin and Starfire made their comments at the same moment, the difference in their tones almost comical. Starfire looked a question at Raven, the woman shying away from eye-contact with a frown, then tried again with Robin, who flushed and glanced down at the floor. The alien's face twisted into a mild panic as both her friends evaded the unspoken question, and then spoke it outright with mounting fear as more blank spots in her memory came to her attention.

"Why… what is this… 'freaking out' that I am accused of?"

"Ahh…" Robin shook his head as he intensified his examination of the floor, then he sighed and lifted his eyes again. "You **_didn't_** give her those memories back?" he evaded Starfire's question and shot his comment, not quite accusingly but definitely not happily, over to Raven.

"It seemed like a good idea to do this in moderation," Raven answered without shame, obviously disgusted by Robin's sudden cowardice, even as she felt the same gutlessness chill her own spine at the thought of filling in Star on everything she'd done while out of her mind. "I didn't want to overwhelm her by hitting her with everything all at once."

"Please friends… you are frightening me. What is it… what is it that I have been doing? Why can't I remember what happened **_before_** I passed into dreams?"

"No… Star… please don't worry," Robin responded predictably to seeing such hurt in Starfire, and treacherous sting of jealousy right away, "It was nothing… really. Tell me… what's the last thing you can remember?"

"The last thing…" Starfire took the question into deep consideration, a part of her, a miserably small part, shouting with joy at this break in Robin's icy attitude toward her. After some time creasing her brow over the question, Star looked up with her huge green eyes struck with realization. "I remember going out for tea with Raven. A charming stranger gifted us with free drinks… and I thought it only proper to accept the gifts in good grace as is only polite. Raven was saying something about 'assholes' and 'cheap pickups,' but I had already finished mine by then. She refused her own, and so I helped her show good manners by compelling her to drink as well, lest we provide offense to the stranger kind enough to grant us the gift. I… I don't really remember… I can't remember anything after that…" and her voice filled with fear again, "It all goes black."

"That wasn't the end of it… not by far." Robin crossed his arms and frowned in distaste at the memories he was running through, so recent, yet seeming like they came from weeks past. "The drinks were drugged Starfire… that man was an agent hired by an old enemy of mine from Gotham, and he tainted those drinks so he could use you two as hostages. That's why you passed out."

"Oh my…"

"I got you both away without too much trouble, but that wasn't even **_almost_** the end of it. It turns out the whole thing was a ruse, and the attack was the drug itself. It was supposed to… supposed to make you both puppets, make it impossible for you to refuse to do whatever you were commanded. It had **_exactly_** that effect on Raven."

Starfire gasped, her eyes darting to her friend, only to find that the mystic was even more reluctant than ever to meet her gaze. Though still limp, Starfire got the distinct impression that Raven wanted to curl up and cower away from both of them… a sensation Starfire was herself becoming all too familiar with. Just then, a streak of pain shot through Starfire's head, and she held a hand to her temple and gave a tiny shriek at the flash of agony. Both fellow Titans leapt out of their reclusive stances and exploded with concern, Robin crossing the room in a physical leap and Raven mustering all her independence to shift her head over and fix worry-widened eyes on Starfire.

"What's the matter, what's wrong?" Robin asked, leaning against the bed next to her, staying always just out of arms reach.

"It… it all begins to make sense…" Starfire whispered, letting the hand slide from her skull to her eyes as her breathing sped and her body stiffened in miserable pain. "The strange dreams… the terrifying nightmares… Raven herself mentioned these drugs before… I simply did not 'add it up'…" and Starfire trailed off to quiet misery, even as she seemed to pull herself together, hugging her arms close over her chest as though to stabilize herself by pure physical force. In a voice so serious it was almost frightening, she asked yet another question. "What did I **_do_**?"

"Well… er…" as he switched from panic about Starfire's health to panic about her question, Robin didn't really manage to maintain any kind of grace, even physically stumbling backward from the bed when she turned an agonizingly serious glare at him from point-blank range. Grasping for words, Robin glanced at Raven for aid, only to get an even more frightening glare of rejection right back. Raven had helped her through the love triangle revelation… her glare told him he'd be on his own for this next one. Meanwhile Starfire was clearly getting impatient for an answer—clearly because she was starting to shiver in terror at Robin's reluctance, her fear over what could possibly be so terrible to get this reaction from him writing itself all over her face and body language.

"I… I think it would be a lot easier to just show you, okay?"

"What?" Raven and Starfire both snapped out their surprise at this answer in the same moment, though the difference in their tones was on par with the simultaneous reactions by Robin and Star earlier. Starfire was a little shocked and confused, but Raven sounded outright dangerous, her eyes narrowing to slits as a faint crackle of power leapt past the drug's control to play around her irises.

"Ah… it's **_not_** what it sounds like! It's just that… the tower security cameras were on the whole time… and I didn't quite believe it myself, right afterward, so it occurred to me to check… and sure enough…"

Raven's glare had become a physical force boring into him, only the ironclad grip of Joker's drug keeping her fury under any kind of control, a fact that Robin was well aware of. As he broke out in a nervous sweat, he tossed her a weak smile and finished his explanation, holding out hope that Starfire wouldn't give the furious woman a premature opening by voicing the confusion she so visibly held.

"Listen, it sounds pretty bad, but I've already cleaned the archives and erased it all from record. I kept one copy… I kept one copy for just **_this_** situation. Alright?"

"Oh **_Yeah_**," Raven let loose with a huff the moment the question passed Robin's lips, as though a steam valve had just burst under high pressure, "I'm **_so_** certain that's why you kept a copy! I mean, I **_knew_** all men were perverts, but damnit Robin, I thought you had a bit more **_character_** than that!"

"Hey, now **_stop_** **_right_** **_there_**!" and now it was Robin's turn to be furious, the sudden shift actually stopping Raven instantly. "I know you were hurt by this, we were **_all_** hurt by this—so have you taken even one minute out to consider how **_I_** feel about this nightmare? I mean, good lord, one minute my biggest concern in the world is the dropping crime-rate and an overdose of free time, the next I've been outflanked by not one, but **_two_** beautiful women who suddenly cant hold back very large, very real feelings for me! What did you think I was going to do, jump for joy? Throw a parade? I panicked, okay, and the moment I was sure I hadn't dreamed the whole thing, I hid the last copy of the record and I got the hell out of here." He slowed then, seeming to get a grip on himself at last. "That's why I wasn't here… when things went bad… okay? I'm sorry… I… I couldn't think here… not after what happened… and… I **_definitely_** needed to think. …What?"

Robin asked the last as he looked up to see both women staring at him with the oddest expressions on their faces. He wasn't sure if he'd ever seen them was such disturbingly identical looks, much less had those looks directed at him, and it actually began to creep him out a little. Okay—**_more_** than a little.

"**_What_**? I… I know I screwed up… I can't even express how sorry I am that all this," and he gestured vaguely to the room, "happened. **_What is it_**?" He couldn't take their silent, frozen stares a moment longer, and his final snap seemed to pull them out of whatever place they'd gone to.

"It's just…" Began Raven, arguably the more clear-minded of the two,

"Do you really…" went on Starfire, who seemed to have forgotten all her fear and pain, at least for the time being,

"Think that… we're…" Raven had to take a moment to get the pronoun right… selfishness never stopped trying to take hold, after all,

"**_Beautiful_**?" and Starfire had exactly the kind of tone that makes men sweat and boys run away scared. Robin sort of split the difference, mostly because he was being double-teamed.

"Oh… uh…" '_leave it to women to focus on the **damaging** part of that outburst_,' he thought to himself as he floundered. His flush was classic, his discomfort was nothing if not charming, and he stepped back and started to absently scratch at the back of his head, stretching out his lean physique magnificently. None of that helped cool off the situation. "Well, let's go ahead and get Starfire caught up then, shall we?"

"Yes… shall we then…?" No one was surprised that Starfire didn't hold any enthusiasm for that suggestion, and her face fell terribly as Robin changed the subject and the burst of feeling faded, the wonderfully unintentional, but obviously honest compliment moving into the dust of the past.

Raven, for her part, snapped out of it with only a little less bleakness on her mind. She realized that she'd actually been pining for Robin a moment ago, in exactly the same immature, bubble-minded way Starfire had been doing at the same time, and she was disgusted with herself. That this burst of self-recrimination was no match for the heat pumping in her chest with the knowledge that Robin thought her beautiful was beside the point… or at least that's what she was desperately trying to convince herself right now. The last thing she wanted was to dissolve into a gooey mass… it might still be her only chance of **_competing_** with Starfire, and a little part of her wept bitterly as she realized that that was the one true reason she was being so hard on herself.

"Star, do you think you can walk?" Robin asked simply, concerned but moving back to businesslike.

"Ummm…"

"Right, I'll get a wheelchair. There's no point in delaying this any longer." He left immediately, almost eagerly, and took his time. When he got back he looked much more composed, hefting the unwieldy device over the rubble with consummate ease, his masked face no longer revealing anything of the war of emotions that was still raging within them all. Raven was impressed, but Starfire just frowned and fell deeper into withdraw.

As he positioned himself next to their bed, Starfire absently reached out to grab his arm at the bicep for stability during the short trip to the wheelchair. He must have been more exhausted than he looked, because the touch took him by complete surprise, and he recoiled on pure instinct as those petite hands brushed against the deep, still-purpling bruises they so recently caused.

The jerk of motion startled all three of them, Robin glancing back over his shoulder with fresh terror in his eyes at the memory of choking helplessness he'd suffered under those deceptively tiny hands. Starfire looked almost as stunned as she was hurt, for her life never expecting such a reaction, for her sanity not comprehending what had caused it. Only Raven looked on with anything less than horror, the shocking reaction reminding her instantly of the humiliation the young man had suffered at Starfire's drug-maddened hands. With knowledge of just how terrible that must be for both of the others, came also the faintest glimmering of a most horribly treacherous emotion. Hope.

"Raven… **_you_** help Starfire into the wheelchair." Robin's tone completely cut off any questions from Starfire, who looked ready to cry again after such an obvious and incomprehensible rejection.

"Yes…" Raven responded as only the drugs could force her. On one side, she knew Robin was completely and utterly botching his handling of this… nothing could excuse his treating Star like that right before what they were about to show the poor girl. On the other side… her own hope continued to burn, and she cringed inwardly at how good it felt to twist the knife in her best friend's back when she couldn't be connected to the betrayal. Her mind was working with a chill deviousness, and she knew nothing would drive a more opportune wedge between Robin and Starfire than this, here, now. She hated herself more and more with every passing second, even as she used her powers to shovel her friend gently into the waiting chair.

"Come on you two… lets get this over with."

"Yes…"

"Robin…?" but Starfire's whisper did not carry, so weighted was it by miserable uncertainty and lingering agony. Raven wept for her friend on the inside, even as she exulted in blessed opportunity. It was **_not_** a pleasant duality.

Titan's Tower Common Room

There was a rather oppressive silence as Robin booted up the main terminal, and now no one made any attempt to lighten it. Starfire was sprawled on the couch, still more than halfway undressed, but much too preoccupied with little things like 'why is Robin terrified of my touch' to really care. Raven sat in flat, emotionless silence a little ways around the couch, utterly unreadable, looking almost as indecent as Starfire without her cloak or any of her subdued accessories to accentuate her tight leotard.

The room itself was still a mess, a fact that had caused Starfire no end of worry when she'd first seen it, the broken glass and paint peelings littering the area in front of the television from where Raven had lost it while scoring her first kiss with Robin. **_That_** was a delightful memory all right, and even drugged, Raven had to struggle to keep the delight off her face. She reprimanded herself silently again, as she really had no place being so smug and chipper considering what was about to happen to her best friend. She looked to the TV, still shattered from her guilt overload post-kiss, and that killed her mood just right.

Robin was the only one moving, working at a panel in the side of the shattered television. The next moment, the mangled device withdrew into the ceiling, prompting a series of mechanical whirring and clanging sounds. Finally, a fully repaired television slid back out of its recess, the product of Cyborg's inventive remedy to his own video-game stress issues. Robin could only wish fixing the lighting could be that easy.

"Alright, here we go," Robin finally broke the silent stalemate of tension, sliding the digital tape disc into their fresh television and grabbing the remote. Sitting carefully between the two women, well out of reach of either, he leaned forward over his knees in a slouch and got the video rolling.

"Ten forty, Friday night, I get a call from a wanted assassin by the name of Ravager. He has you both hostage and demands that I present myself for termination or risk your lives."

Both women stare in silent appreciation as the screen opens up on multiple camera angles, each one confined to its own box on the huge screen, and revealed the rather impressive pace Robin made out of the building the moment he found out they were in danger. Both women looked at him, but he simply continued to stare at the screen. He fast-forwarded fiercely, jetting through a whole lot of nothing.

"Eleven twenty, Friday night, I arrive back with both of you on hand. At this point we're aware of the drug's effects on Raven and she and I fear the worst… because Starfire… we couldn't wake you up." She looked appropriately grave after that comment, they all did, actually. "I placed you both in the medical bay and got the computers started on analyzing just what it was that had gotten into you." As he spoke, they watched the cameras, the screens blanking out and giving the entire television to the two cameras tracking in the med-bay. He shot forward through the record yet again, and they were treated to the site of him pacing in frustration… for two hours.

"One thirty, Saturday Morning, the computers are still working fruitlessly at analyzing the drug when I receive a recorded message from an unknown sender. It's the Joker, a manically ingenious, maximally disturbed, homicidal maniac that I cut my heroing teeth on back in Gotham. He admitted the drugs were his doing and… here…" he stopped the video, the camera perfectly capturing the shock on his face as he realized what the Joker was up to, "was the objective he sought." Robin started the video again and the three of them got to see a mind-controlled Raven use him to play a drum roll on the wall. Raven shrunk in on herself as she recalled her terrible inability to control her own body.

"We… **_handled_** the problem… and Joker went on to gloat his nutty ass off. He took particular pleasure in telling me that while he'd very specifically designed the drug to do… what it did… to Raven, he didn't actually have any idea what it was going to do to you Starfire. We had to find that out the hard way."

All parties went silent for a moment as the tape rolled on, Starfire glancing half-frantically from Robin to Raven as the tension reached a peek. Writhing discomfort was rolling off of each of them in drowning waves, no matter how much the two master stoics endeavored to keep it off their faces. The atmosphere was nauseating, and the death-faced beauty could feel the axe reach its peek, ready to fall and split her soul.

"Here… one thirty five, Saturday Morning, you unexpectedly regain consciousness Star. I'll…I'll let the video… speak for itself."

Starfire swallowed hard and forced herself to look at the screen, even as her friends both averted their eyes. History was repeating itself for her benefit, or her detriment, as the case may be, but neither of the others had any desire to see any of this again… or at least not to see what she thought about it. So she was effectively alone when the screen cut to just one camera angle, filling completely with a shot of her dragging herself drowsily from the hospital bed.

She watched in silence as her image addressed Robin from a haze. She gasped, her pupils dilating explosively as she began to strip off her clothing right there, right there in front of Robin. With a blush that trailed quickly from her face down her throat and body, she glanced down, noticing that she was still exposed, and reflexively hugged her arms across her sparse top in a belated effort toward modesty. She sat, mouth agape, as she… accosted Robin… in a way she just couldn't believe. Her mind boggled, and it was like she was looking at someone else rubbing up against Robin, some other nearly naked woman hanging around him, anyone but her… **_grinding_** into him.

"Oh merciful X'hal… what is this?"

"Robin, I think that's enough."

"…no… how… I don't…X'hal no…"

"**_Robin_**!"

The video stopped, but that was the only thing to pause in a room suddenly boiling with tense undercurrents. Raven was once again staring murder at Robin, whose body was still, yet trembling undeniably, the remote actually shaking in his hand. Starfire had literally crumpled in on herself, her knees gripped to her chest and her face hidden in her thighs, concealing her every feature with long, bare limbs.

"I'm afraid… I'm afraid there's more."

"Nnhhh…" Raven railed against the drug, straining to voice her protest without the liberation of a question, straining to reach across the room and smite Robin for what he was doing. Any thought of what this encounter would do for her chances with him had evaporated, akin to nothing in the face of what Starfire was suffering right now. Robin had to stop this, but he was picking his words carefully. Fortunately, Starfire wasn't.

"M… More?" Starfire peeked meekly over her knees to stare at Robin in horror.

"Robin, stop it! She doesn't need to see the rest—she **_gets_** the idea, alright? Just… just stop!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry… but she **_needs_** to see it all. **_I_** need her to see it all. Some things have… have changed for me… and I can't explain those things. Only seeing it could possibly explain it."

"Mmm…" Raven's face contorted, but she had no more leeway to speak.

"I'm sorry. …One forty-five, Saturday morning…" the video sped through the impassioned intervention from Raven that brought him to his senses, as well as the cold shower he'd used to defuse the situation. It stopped again on a mostly naked Robin standing across from a slack-faced, cloakless Raven in the common room. Starfire stiffened, shock-widened eyes taking in a damp Robin stripped down to the waist. "Raven and I managed to calm your initial… 'outburst,' Star. We were talking afterward when another function of drug surfaced… it's truth-serum effect. Mostly through my own bungling, I squeezed the Big Bad Secret out of her… basically dragging this whole beast into the light. That much, at least, is undeniably my fault. So is… what happened next."

"Next…?"

"Please Robin, **_please_** don't show her!" Raven **_begged_**, her eyes emptied of all that protective aggression. A blush no less furious than Starfire's burned across her face and lit the back of her neck, a matching blush of undiluted shame.

"Raven? I do not understand, what--?"

Starfire looked back up at the monitor from behind her knees just in time to see the explosion of black energy that blew out the lighting. Her question died as her mind tried to encompass this fresh hell, tears bleeding from her eyes as she watched an impassioned Raven pull open her leotard and enfold Robin beneath her on the couch. She acknowledged her revelation of 'what' with a tiny, disbelieving gasp as she witnessed The Kiss.

"GGRRRRAAAHHHH!" Starfire leapt off of the couch in a blur of steel-melting green light, her fists flashing to life like the eyes of an angry god. She clenched both smiting balls of fusion in front of herself, focusing her pain. Her betrayal and base jealousy bloomed into massive star bolts as her face was blanked out by the light of the twin torches on her brow. "RAVEN—YOU—YOU—!"

"**_ENOUGH_**!" that one word snuffed Starfire's outburst like molten iron quenched in ice water, and the alien's suddenly lightless eyes shifted to focus on the source. "Don't you **_dare_** accuse her!" Robin was standing, and his hard eyes were no longer averted. Like poisoned needles, his disgusted expression sapped at Starfire's will until her rage had curdled into stinking bile in her throat.

"Robin? Raven? I… I don't… what was I doing? What have I **_done_**?"

"Don't you **_dare_** accuse Raven of **_anything_**. **_My_** negligence is guilty for what happened last night, do you understand? Raven had been denying her feelings, literally tormenting herself in absolute secrecy, and the one and only reason for it was her care for **_you_** Star—don't betray that."

"Oh… my… no…" Starfire tumbled to her knees, then fainted over to a sprawling seat on the floor as she brought her hands up to hide her face. "Raven… I didn't mean… please… I didn't think…"

"And besides," Robin overrode her crushing revelation with an unintelligible mix of agony and satisfaction in his words, "if Raven is guilty of what she did while drugged. Then there can't be any defense for what you did next."

"**_Next_**?"

"Robin—Robin stop! You can't do this! I know—I know she hurt you Robin, you're right—we all hurt each other—but this is wrong! There's got to be a better way!"

"I only wish," he muttered, shrugging off the last of his restraint and gathering all of his lingering self-loathing and embarrassment into this next moment. "One fifty-two Saturday morning," the video swirled into motion, not stopping until an awakened Starfire had Robin pinned beneath her to the floor, "Starfire, you recovered and picked up exactly where you left off. With no obvious means to debilitate you short of full on combat, we had no choice but to leave you with free reign. You… **_used_** it."

Starfire made an unintelligible noise, cringing away from Robin's vitriol and turning slowly to witness the rest of her shaming. After only seconds of watching, her mouth opened to gasp, or scream, or weep, though she could make no sound come out. She reddened like a steamed lobster, springing off of the floor and backing away from everyone. Absently, she held a hand to her lips, glancing alternately at the tape and Robin as she tried to conceive of what she'd just seen, what she was **_still_** seeing as the event endured on the record. Her—Robin—Kissing! … really, **_really_** kissing…

"That goes on for a while," Robin sped through the next few minutes, suddenly trying to wear a hole in the floor through the sheer weight of his gaze, "until one fifty-five, Saturday morning, when the situation is… aggravated. **_This_** is the part that you need to see. It's the other thing that… 'changed' our situation."

Starfire barely seemed to hear him past her psychotic embarrassment, but her eyes drited back to the tape, Robin cranking the volume until she couldn't hope but hear the words exchanged in this very room a single night past.

"Ohhhh Robin… that was a **_naughty_** thing to do… I **_liked_** it…" The tape fast-forwards in a squealing blur as her heart makes a concentrated effort to stop beating. "Robin… I have… I… have a question… There is… an **_itch_** Robin, it is… **_unfamiliar_**… but… perhaps… you might know…?" Tears began to gather for a new deluge, anything at all that might help cool the scalding rush of blood brightening her flesh. Nothing could have prepared her to hear herself voicing questions to **_Robin_** that she'd lacked the courage to ask her own **_doctor_** on her last visit home. Perhaps it was the sheer extent of her embarrassment, her dangerous proximity to a swoon, that made what came next hit so crushingly.

"**_Starfire_**—**_NO!_** I'm **_not_** going to let you **_do_** this! This isn't **_you_**, this isn't **_right_**, and I **_won't_** have **_any_** part of it **_anymore_**! **_Let me go_**!"

For the briefest instant, Starfire's face softened, as though she expected to see herself reach her senses following Robin's passionate command. And then her universe came crashing down.

"And just how do you plan to **_stop_** me? **_You_** have nohope of resisting **_me_**! I can do… **_whatever_** I want… because **_I_** have the **_strength_**…"

"Who—who **_are_** you?"

"I… am in**_ love _**withyou… Robin…"

"NO!" The word sprang from Starfire's lips in a screech, her beseeching denial of the horror she'd just watched her doppelganger commit. Every moment of the recording had sucked another drop of her life away, her brilliant blush draining down to a ghostly pallor as she watched herself overpower and accost Robin in the most vile and nauseating way **_she_** was capable of conceiving. By the time Robin had murdered the feed with a curt flick of the remote, she was on her hands and knees, unable to stand under the burden that had just slammed onto her back.

"NO!" she raved, emphasizing the shout with a fist pounded into the carpet, the entire tower seeming to vibrate with the rock-splitting blow. "NO! NO! NO! **_NO_**!" and each desperate denial came with another tower-shaking punch, until her final strike shattered the armor-plating under the carpet and her fist cleaved straight through the floor. She pulled her hand slowly from the hole, then collapsed down and pressed her crying eyes into her forearms where they were crossed parallel on the floor.

"It is a lie… It cannot have truly happened…" she begged of the floor. Robin, very slight moisture seeping into the supertech polymer of his mask, knelt down next to her.

"Look at me Star," he spoke, and she obeyed, albeit with agonizing slowness. "Lies don't leave bruises…" and he rolled up the sleeve of his armor to reveal the hideous purpling welts ringing his bicep, an abrasion that was a perfect print of her deceptively petite hands.

She fixated on it, and Robin could see her pupils contract reflexively until her eyes were just two dead, iced-green pits staring in disbelief at the proof of her own sin. Eventually, she let her neck go limp and allowed her head to loll down, her hair cascading off her back to hide her face as she stared sightlessly at the floor.

"I… understand…"

"Star… Starfire… I had to make sure you knew. I had to show you why… why things were different… how they had changed. I didn't want you to hurt… but there was no other way."

"No… no…" her denial, so different now, refuted his attempt to explain, "I see clearly now… I see why things are 'changed.'"

"I don't blame you Star. You were drugged… no more guilty for your actions than Raven was. I forgive you—"

"Lies will not **_heal_** the bruises either Robin." Her voice was dead, sucking the warmth from the room and from Robin's blood at the same time.

"What?"

Instead of responding, she reached without looking, darting a hand up to grip his shoulder. His body recoiled on pure reflex, his face contorting into an agony of fear that she did not have to see to know it was there. Her hand froze where it would have touched him, and the next moment he caught himself, ashamed, but too late.

"I… I have dirtied myself…" She whispered, and not to Robin. Like that, she let her hand drop to the floor. Slowly, she took on a soft, green, all-over glow—a glow that immediately began to intensify, pouring out a deluge of heat.

"Starfire?"

"I have betrayed my love… I have violated my friend…"

"Starfire no—I said I forgive you. I'll get over the bruises—I've had worse and you know it." She didn't hear him.

"I am filth… I am… **_vile_**…"

"Agg—**_what_**?" the heat suddenly became intense, Starfire's whole crumpled form going up like a green arc-lamp, forcing Robin back lest he be burned by mere proximity.

"Azar**_ no_**!" Raven ended her silence with a shout of panic. "her powers—Robin, **_righteous fury_**—she's burning herself up!"

Robin glanced from Raven back to Starfire, his eyes narrowed, and there was the slightest flick of his wrist. A brace of foam capsules burst, spewing out its quenching white suds like a heap of cool whip, drowning Starfire's solar flare before it could really begin. They could hear her hacking and coughing past the hiss of expanding foam, and a moment later, a sudsy woman pulled herself from the muck like a marshmallow giant stalking out of a cloudbank.

"Fool!" Robin accused, as he rushed forward to help her out of the suds, "what did you think you were doing? You could have **_killed_** someone like that!" There was a moment of strained silence, then Raven gave a sarcastic cough behind them. "I meant **_besides_** herself."

The foam, short-lived as it was, began to hiss into its gaseous phase, and in a moment Starfire was merely a little damp. There was a circle of ash on the floor nearby that was all that was left of the carpet she'd been kneeling on. Robin continued to stare at her irately, a sham cover for his terrified concern, not that she knew that.

"I… apologize. You are correct Robin… that was very reckless of me." Robin relaxed at her apparent compliance, giving her just the opportunity she needed to snake forward and snatch at his belt with both hands. He was caught totally off-guard, allowing her to get away with one birdarang each from the dispensers on either of his hips. Before he could finish flinching, she jammed them together, creating his sword. Twisting the hilt just the way he'd shown her during a fit of unconscious flirting one training day, she transformed it into a dagger.

"**_Now_** what—" But Starfire was already kneeling, holding the dagger up to him even as she bowed her head to hide her lifeless expression.

"There can be no forgiveness for what I have done. The way your body rejects my touch is proof enough of that, so do not pretend any longer. By the laws of my people, I have lost my honor, and my life is forfeit."

"That's enough!" and she flinched at his venom, though she did not withdraw the proffered weapon. "I don't want to hear another word about this! I told you that'd I'd get over it, I just wanted you to know why I was a little freaked out. Now put that away, I don't want to see you dead Starfire, I'd give my life to protect yours, even now."

"LIAR!" she shook with her own self-loathing and terror, "I have done something **_terrible_**… I cannot **_live_** with this knowledge… now please… take your compensation."

"I would never hurt you Star," he said as he reached slowly to get the knife away from her, "I don't **_want_** your life."

"Neither do I!" and that shriek was the trigger for her to plunge the knife toward her heart. Robin didn't think, he just reacted, exactly as he had when he flinched from her grip.

There was a confused flash of motion, a loud, sharp chink of metal against metal, and then everyone opened their eyes again. Robin was lain back, his left leg bent at the knee as he held himself up with both hands against the floor, his right leg extended all the way forward, where his armored boot had interposed between dagger and heart. The blade had pierced through and its tip was digging very gently into Starfire's sparse top. It took them both a moment to realize what that meant.

"EEEEE! Robin, your **_foot_**!" Star squealed, her suicide momentarily forgotten in blind concern for the fighter. Robin looked ill as he stared at the quivering blade that had stabbed through him, and he wasted no time jerking the blade free and kicking off his metal-shod boot. He held up a black-socked foot and wiggled his toes, displaying the tear where the blade had sliced between them and miraculously missed all flesh. Both man and woman sighed in one unified burst of relief. Then both remembered themselves, and Robin leapt up in a rage as Starfire turned away and covered her face in shame.

"What the hell are **_thinking_**? Do you really believe any of us want to see you hurt? Do you really think that's going to solve anything?"

"I… cannot live with this shame…" was her sparse whisper, and Robin took a breath to scream his terrified frustration at her, just as the whole scene was stalled by the elevator dinging down the hall.

"Hot damn, did **_I_** ever have a crazy night!" Speedy shouted with amiable abandon as he stepped out of the hallway the next moment, and all of Robin's incredible trauma over Starfire's repeated bursts of self-violence suddenly landed on him in the form of a withering, snarling grimace. He took one look at that and wilted, raising one masked eyebrow in timid embarrassment. "Err, bad time eh?"

"I cannot **_live_** with this shame." Starfire said to herself, much more forcefully, as she stumbled across the room to the huge windows overlooking Jump Bay.

"Ahh, **_really_** bad time, I get it. I'll just… leave you guys your privacy…"

Before he could finish edging out of the room, Starfire drew her fist back and smashed the pane of glass that stood between her and the night's moonlit void. A burst of air sucked everything towards that point in an ear-popping implosion, a roar of wind providing the soundtrack to the stunned horror of everyone watching. Like that, she was gone into the night… and she wasn't flying.

A blur of red. A hiss and clang of metal. A flying leap. A Robin took flight, trailing his frail lifeline, as his heart plummeted before him to her doom. Air rushed passed in its deafening blasts as he dove, zipping down like a bullet chasing a sputtering spark to oblivion. With a precision borne of incessant training, he overcame blind panic for long enough to wrap Starfire in the kind of embrace that not even death would break, then slam onto the grapnel mechanism, bringing them both to a jerking stop. For an instant, he exulted in relief, even as Starfire, hair flailing while they swung upside down, stared at him with obvious disbelief. She truly appeared as though she'd never expected to look at him again.

Then the moment was over. With a lurch in his gut, Robin's whole body seized with panic. Instantly he knew the hook had popped free of its fastening far above them, and just as quickly, the shadowy rocks restarted their sprint toward the pair's skulls.

Titan's Tower Common Room—10 seconds ago

Speedy watched in disbelief as Robin followed Starfire out the window without the barest heartbeat's hesitation. He didn't even notice as his legs took him toward the window at a sprint, or even the way he cleared the couch like a track hurdle as he drew his bow. He noticed nothing, nothing but the grapnel stuck into the soft plaster of the ceiling, and the screaming terror in his brain that was instinctual knowledge of his blood-brother's imminent demise.

He was still six feet away when the line let out a ringing twang, and though it held for the briefest instant, he still leapt full-out. Sliding on armored belly, Speedy heard the hook jerk free from the ceiling, heard the deadly hiss as the line was sucked out the window, saw the grapnel clang and nip at the floor, searching hopelessly for purchase before it too skittered into the night sky. Then he was out the window too, reaching with the breadth of his bow, snatching up the hook on the shaft of his weapon as he gripped with all his might to either end, spread his legs, and caught the window frame with either foot.

"AAHHHGGG!" his body threatened to buckle under the agonizing strain of three weights, but he dug deep, and for his own life and the life of his friends, he **_held_**. "NNNNEH!—" he rattled off a string of filthy curses, "**_Jesus_**, you're both out of your **_fucking_** minds! Hell, **_I'm_** out of **_my_** mind! Now we're **_all_** gonna die! What the **_hell_** am I supposed to do **_now_**?"

"Speedy—ask me for help!" he recognized a terror-struck Raven, though he'd never noticed her in the room when he'd bungled in.

"Do I really need to **_ask_**?"

"**_Speedy_**!"

"I'm just saying—" His feet suddenly slipped two inches, and only the creased toes of his boots were keeping him and his friends from eternity, "HELP! For the love of god, **_HELP_**!"

Like that, she was gone from the couch.

Outside Titans Tower: Approx. 10 Stories from a Jagged, Stony Death

"**_Why_** Robin? Why do you **_stop_** me?" She pleaded, the tears dripping up her forehead and soaking into her hair as they swung upside down.

"Mmrrmphlhrm!"

"What?"

His voice was muffled by chance of their odd arrangement. After all, he had his arm locked around her waist, which, along with their height difference, left his face firmly planted in her cleavage. Not that he had the presence of mind to appreciate the situation.

"Does it **_matter_**?" he repeated as he fought clear of her ample endowment. "Star—look at me—look at **_us_**! I could never live with myself if anything happened to you! I will protect you with every breath in my body, with every ounce of strength I have. If that means I have to protect you from yourself, then **_fine_**! You want to die—here!" He snatched at a dangling hand with his free arm, then held it down to his waist where the grapnel was straining at his belt. The winch had jammed, and he had no clue what it had caught on after pulling out of the ceiling, but with Starfire in no state to fly, it was all that was keeping them alive right now. "If you want to take the easy way out, then all you have to do is press this button. The rocks will do us **_both_**."

She hesitated, staring in horror into his look of utter seriousness as he tied his fate to her own. In the face of that kind of resolution, her paltry death-wish fell away, impotent.

"No…"

"What? What's this now?" his voice was more than a little strained by the pressure of talking upside down while dangling in the early morning crosswind, "Suddenly she can live with the shame? Because just a minute ago she jumped out of a damn **_30th story window_** to get away from it!"

"Robin… no… please…"

"It's funny how you couldn't **_live_** with the shame Star, considering the situation. Did Raven **_live_** with the shame of betraying your friendship? Did she **_live_** with the pain of hiding her feelings to protect you? Did I **_live_** with the shame of nearly taking advantage of both of you while you were drugged? Do I **_live_** with the agony… the **_misery_** of knowing you both feel for me 'that' way? Of knowing that any choice I could make will crush the heart of at least one woman I **_love_**?"

"No…**_Liar_**!" Starfire gasped, shaking her head as she flushed, trying to keep the fact that he'd just stabbed into her mind from being true. Such a revelation, such a glorious, beautiful concept, would destroy her with happiness, would grant her joy she did not deserve—and so must not come true. Her hair cascaded around beneath them in the wind as she pressed herself away from him, ignoring the death this would mean in her irrational attempt to separate, to escape the lifesaving embrace and flee to the oblivion she knew she so richly deserved. But for once, her strength would not come, so strained was her broken heart.

"I'm sorry, you're right, I don't know what I was thinking. Please, let me **_rephrase_** that!" and Robin overpowered her feeble flailing, out of panic and desperation acting on a hope, a prayer, and something he'd been wanting to do for days. Slinging an arm around her neck, he pulled her down… er… up until they were face to face, looked her right in her tear-spewing eyes, and kissed her.

At first it was like he'd given her the kiss of death, so utterly limp and lifeless she became. Pressing through, it became the kiss of life, she started to respond rather 'eagerly'… and before he knew it he could have been on the moon for all he knew, because he'd gotten lost in her. The kiss was radiant, a chill touch of nipping frost biting through the warmth of the midday sun, all contained within the intense, twisting, slippery contact of lips. She almost seemed to writhe with the sensation, a coiling motion tensing through every inch of her body, pushing and pulling at him wherever he touched her, making the kiss a dance of flesh, lips, and tongue. He was flying. They were flying. They were… flying?

"Starfire?" he whispered, barely drawing away from her, so that his lips still brushed hers as he spoke.

"Robin—I'm so sorry—I'm so sorry—I'm SO sorry! I cannot believe what I… what I have put you through… not once, but twice now!" She pulled slightly farther back, but their harsh breaths still mingled freely as they twirled in the air. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"Damnit Star," and the relief practically welled up out of his skin it was so extreme as they spiraled upward under her power of flight, "I've **_already_** forgiven you," the suddenly put on a burst of speed as her face lit like the sunrise striking through storm clouds, "Now please, stop those tears and let's get inside. This is a damn long way from over," and just like that, they sputtered to a halt.

"But… But you said you loved…"

"**_Both_** of you."

"What… **_how_**… I do not believe it **_works_** that way Robin."

"She's got you there Don Juan!"

"**_Speedy_**?" both Robin and Starfire turned to him at the same time, just now realizing that their sudden stop had parked them right next to the window she'd punched out. He was hanging by his toes completely spread out down the side of the tower, the limp grapnel line still hanging from his bow.

"You were expecting maybe Superman? Sorry to disappoint, but this time it was lil' ol' me that kept you from falling to your deaths. So hey, how about… I dunno… **_SAVING ME_**?"

"Oh… right…"

"I mean geese, I send Raven out to help you guys and **_she_** leaves me hanging, now you two are trying to decide between googly eyes and homicide while my ass is waving in the wind…"

"You sent **_Raven_**?" Robin was utterly sidetracked, and his shock gave Starfire pause as well.

"Uh… **_yeah_**, I didn't want to die saving **_your_** useless ass. Dying while saving Star would have been a reasonable consolation prize, but that wasn't looking too likely—the saving part I mean—the dying part was a lock—so—"

"I didn't see Raven," Starfire said flatly, more than a little dazed. She'd just gone from suicidal to blissful, and now she was hovering somewhere around murderously jealous without really knowing that was what it was. I think one could forgive her for being a tad confused.

"That doesn't mean **_she_** didn't see **_us_**…" Robin whispered, his heart winding into a double knot of tension as he considered the implications. "Oh no…"

"Uh… a little help here?"

"Star, help Speedy!"

"But where are you going?" She asked to his back as he leapt away from her and back into the common room, right over Speedy's dangling form. It wasn't exactly accusatory, but it wasn't exactly **_not_**.

"Just help him!"

"Yes! Just help me!"

"But Robin—" she flew after him, leaving Speedy on the side of the tower.

"Hey! Hey! What the hell—HEY! …Ahh **_crap_**."

Rewind 30 seconds

Raven felt the drug loose its grip at the delightfully open-ended command of 'help,' and she took full advantage. Without her cloak on, it was a little odd, but none the less, she melted into a shadow and seeped into the couch, exiting this dimension with a simple spell. Twisting through space, she arrived outside, emerging from the concrete, steel, and glass of the tower wall like it was shallow bathwater. She looked up fully expecting to see the two most important people in her universe plummeting to their dooms, and instead, she saw them kissing.

She clamped down on her reaction, funneling it through space as she'd trained, and as a result, she **_didn't_** blow out every window on this face of the tower in a matrix-like ripple of black shadowy contra-dimensional destruction. Instead, somewhere, a microscopic pocket dimension collapsed in on itself, destroying a million, million populated galaxies that would have fit on the head of a needle. Such are the vagrancies of existence, and its not like she **_knew_** that's what happened when she did that, so let it lie, because right now, a young woman's heart was melting.

Making not the slightest sound, she dove back into the wall of the tower like she would drown herself in the concrete. Her spell did not care that her mind was on fire, did not care that she'd just been impaled upon a rusty, many-pronged nail of rejection—it demanded a destination, and while she despaired, it wrenched one single place from her mind, the one place where she went to be at peace, the one place where she might be alone with her pain.

When she took her next breath, Raven was on the roof, standing on a ledge one step from oblivion, her arms crossed as she hugged herself against the wind. Without her cloak, the night was bitingly cold, and she felt every motion of air sweep through her thin leotard like an icy lover's touch. Even as she allowed this thought to percolate through the mire of her own mangled love, the drug returned its paralyzing grip, and she was left to fester immobile in her pain.

A strong gust blew across her back, gnawing away what illusion of warmth remained, setting her teetering on uncertain balance, and as her heart leapt in terror, the yawning abyss opened up in front of her. Suddenly, some treacherous voice, a voice she'd never thought to hear, whispered that she should not fear that fall. It mumbled sweet promises of a quick, nay, instantaneous end to the boiling agony that tore at her insides like a pack of rabid dogs, the braying mass fighting over the tattered bits of her heart. The voice tempted, seductive, making headway here that it could never have dreamed of ever before, not on the night she first heard the prophecy, not on her seventeenth birthday—never had she been this close.

Really, why not? Starfire had thought it a worthy option, until he'd healed her every wound with the affections that she'd so desperately, secretly, yearned for. Raven now knew herself to be a fool, a stupid, emotional simpleton, for ever believing she could grasp for him as long as that beauty still drew breath. It simply wasn't going to happen, no matter how long she held out, so really, why not? What more was there to live for? Or so the voice asked. She was bigger than the voice, she was so **_much_** stronger than the voice, but in this moment, the voice was all she could hear. It took an intervention before her silent strength could crush that treacherous voice, and fortunately, ever fortunately, an intervention came.

"Raven—there you are!" his voice was a tangle of relief and satisfaction, neither of which she could put a reason behind. "What are you doing up here?"

"Hoping for a favorable crosswind." It was honesty borne of the drug, to be sure, because she instantly regretted the words the moment she could no longer withdraw them. She felt a flash of embarrassment that he might think her **_that_** kind of girl, then a flash of shame when she realized just how close she'd been to proving such thoughts true.

"What—" he started, before he noticed her precarious perch, and then he frowned so deeply she could hear it. "I never pegged **_you_** as the kind to take the coward's way out." It stung, and so she stung back by reflex.

"I could have said the same thing about Starfire… until about five minutes ago." Burned—and by the silence, he knew it.

"Touché. I guess… I guess this is the kind of situation that drives us all to places one might never have expected to reach." It was one of the weakest remarks she'd ever heard, and she suddenly longed for the opportunity to tell him just that. Damn drugs. "Come on Raven, let's get out this wind. You look like you're freezing." He reached out, she could feel his hands closing in on her shoulders to bring her down, and in that moment, a reaction snaked up from her guts so visceral that it snapped right past the Joker's drug and off her supposedly paralyzed tongue.

"Don't touch me!"

"Raven?"

"What do you think you're playing at? Did you come up here to comfort the runner up? I know it was pathetic to have ever even wished for you to feel something for me, but I'm not stupid, and I don't need your pity. I'm hardly the first teenage girl who's ever gotten her pretty little romantic fantasies crushed—I'll get over it, **_okay_**?"

"Raven--?"

"Stay back!" she repeated as she felt him reaching toward her again. "Don't touch me! Why the hell d-d-do you have to be that way?" she was shivering, teeth chattering, so much that she could no longer talk straight. "Why do you have to be so damn n-n-nice about all this? Can't you at least **_try_** to rub it in? Can't you act like you so obviously **_feel_**, s-s-so at l-l-least I can ditch these lingering regrets! Besides… if you d-d-don't b-b-back off, your new girlfriend is l-l-liable to get the wrong idea."

"Let her." The words slithered into her ear from an inch away, and the next moment she was enveloped from behind by a hot, firm embrace. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her from the ledge, and she was pinned within a hot, firm bundle of super-hero class muscles before she knew what was going on.

"Nnnhh," she began to squirm as much as she was able the instant the initial, stunning surprise had passed, but even without the paralytic effect of the drug, as long as she couldn't use her powers, she might as well try to lift a steel girder as break Robin's embrace. She felt a flash of terror, perhaps some small fraction of what he'd felt at Starfire's hands, and immediately she could sympathize with the rather dramatic way he'd chosen to inform the woman of what her body had been out doing while she was away. She certainly wanted Robin to suffer just then, despite all she felt for him.

"I'm never going to be able to explain this to you… but there's another way."

"Nnnnhh," she strained to curse at him, to damn him to hell for the way he so effortlessly toyed with her heart, but she could form no words without the release of a question.

"I suppose a more poetic person might say it was fate that bottled up your powers though this ordeal and prevented us from trying this earlier, but that's not me. I'm just going to fix it, now."

She wasn't listening, she wasn't going to let herself feel any more useless hope, not after what she'd seen. When push came to shove, it was always Starfire, Starfire, Starfire. She would never be able to compete with the alien… and that was all there was to it, so she blocked Robin's voice out with all of her will as she suffered in his tender, unbreakable embrace.

"I'm **_ordering_** you, Raven, to use your powers. You're an empath… look into my heart and see what I'm feeling right now."

"Yes…" NO! NO! NO! She railed against the command, wanting to see nothing of his heart, blessing every moment that the drugs had neutered her empathy up to now. If she looked there… if she saw what he truly felt… she could never again even lie to herself about what she meant to him. Her dreams… already broken… would pass forever into oblivion. As always, the Joker's twisted chemicals worked her like a flesh puppet, and she was given no further choice.

Slipping past Robin's wide open guard was effortless, so that the normally unreadable man might as well have had his emotions blown up a thousand times on an amphitheatre overhead projector. Feeling very much like someone had put her head in clamps and was now holding her eyes open and forcing her to watch something horrifying, Raven looked and saw exactly what he felt. Then she looked again, without the resistance, straining to be certain. Then she could neither see nor sense a damn thing, not past the crying.

"What did you see?" Robin prompted her as he felt her stiff, resistant body suddenly relax into his arms, burrowing into his chest to take shelter from the wind… and to revel in the feel of his heated armor against her thin leotard.

"That's… impossible."

"That's what **_I_** said."

"How could this have happened?"

"I said that too."

"No… Robin… oh… do you really… do you really **_feel_** that way about us… about **_me_**?" He didn't answer right away, instead turning her around in his arms until she was cradled face-forward against his chest. He drew her eyes upward to end their very slight height difference.

"Maybe this will answer your question?" She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but found it suddenly difficult to talk with his lips pressed over hers. Then of course, talking was the least of her concerns as her universe became fireworks and sirens, a wash of undiluted feeling flowing from him to her through their touching lips. It was so different from their first, with him kissing her, his massive physical strength stretched out around her in all its delicious, hard curvature. The sensation was as indescribable as it was magnificent, and as it endured, cracks began to snake and pop as they crawled outward from Raven's feet in an ever expanding circle along the stone rooftop, quietly etching an intricate spider's web onto the floor. Quietly, that is, until one of the strands licked against a rooftop heating vent and—

BOOM

Both young lovers were startled from their indiscresion, pulling apart to watch the vent do its plentiful summersaults before it came back to earth and clattered onto the rootop. Raven was more than a little unsteady after that, and Robin took shameless advantage as he held her up.

"Geese Raven, are you going to do that every time?"

"Does that question mean we'll be doing that a lot?" she turned the tables with a mischievous grin, even as Robin blushed, then frowned.

"I… I wouldn't start—"

"Ahem!" a sudden, intrusive cough from behind them drew their attention back to the stairwell. Each experienced oddly similar combinations of joy, fright, and shame when they saw Starfire standing there, a look of bitter accusation contorting her always expressive face. "I see you found Raven."

"It's really not what—"

"You are impossible!" Starfire looked like she'd be crying if she wasn't so damn angry, and the same began to take the forefront within each of other heroes. "Fine—I do not pretend to understand this planet's romantic customs, but where I come from, a man does not confess his love to a woman, then go behind her back with another!"

"Starfire, just listen—"

"I will not 'just listen' Robin! I am not **_stupid_**! I see that you had to lie about your feelings to keep me from… from doing something rash and permanent… but that is **_no_** excuse for your current behavior! I am… I am **_through_** with you!"

She turned on her heel and dashed down the stairs before he could get another word out, and though he took the first two steps to chase her, he just couldn't bring himself to go through it all again. Not tonight. Not after all that.

"Oh sweet Jesus… not again…" he said, and he petered to a stop as he leaned against the door to the stairwell. "Why me?"

"Robin, let **_me_** handle this," Raven took the opportunity to speak.

"What?"

"Come on Robin, isn't it obvious? Sometimes, when you're in as deep as you've managed to get yourself, the one thing that can get you out is a little… **_magic_**."

"Wait—you'd **_do_** that?" Robin, as always, was catching on quick. "I don't mean to sound overly skeptical here, but it doesn't take a mind reader to know what **_you've_** been thinking about since I got back earlier. My **_bungling_** this is kind of your big chance."

"Robin… just… **_shut up_**. She's as much my sister as that red-haired wastrel is your brother," and for some reason, mentioning him made them both quirk with momentary hesitation, quickly forgotten though, "and she deserves to know how you really feel about her. She… she deserves a chance to feel like **_this_**." She couldn't really move to indicate what she was talking about, but by the way her arms seemed to hug more tightly around her, he got the idea.

"Yes. Yes, please, Raven, go get Starfire and show her what you saw. Show her what I've been trying to show her. Show her how I feel about her, how I feel about both of you."

"Yes…"

She was gone in a breath of black, but Robin didn't even have time to contemplate the lingering tingle on his lips before she was back again, a struggling alien amazon in tow.

"Raven, what is the meaning of this!" She said, her voice so hoarse and congested that there could be no doubt that she'd been weeping bitterly ever second since she'd left. "Release me! You've already bested me, now I want **_nothing_** to do with you!"

"I'm sorry Star," Raven said neutrally as she let the woman push away from her slightly, then set her right hand to a crackling black glow.

"Sorry? Sorry for what, backstabber? For stealing my heart away? For betraying our friendship? You have done too much to me this night for a mere apology to suffice Raven."

"Don't be such a drama queen, you're about to thank me."

"**_Why_**—" SMACK! Raven's hand whipped around in an epic bitch-slap that staggered Starfire out of her raving. At the moment of impact, there was a fizzing rush of energy from her hand into Star's head, and when she recovered, her eyes were wide and misty with some terrific revelation.

"To answer your question, I'm sorry because when you transfer memories second-hand, you have to put a little snap in your wrist." Starfire just stared at Raven, tears dripping slowly down her cheeks for the umpteenth time this night. The only difference was that they were tears of joy this time. "So are you ready to thank me yet?" Starfire just shook her head, the motion forcing her to catch site of Robin over Raven's shoulder, and that vision bringing her back to the knowledge that had just been hammered into her skull.

"Robin… this is… this is impossible."

"That's what I said," Raven and Robin both agreed simultaneously.

"How could this have happened?"

"I said that—" they heard one another saying the same thing and stalled, smiling.

"I can't… I can't… do you really feel that way about us both? About **_me_**?" Robin smiled, walking towards her quite suddenly. He stepped close and took her hands in his.

"Maybe this will answer your—"

"**_Whoa_** there hot lips—you don't get to prove it to her this time!" Raven strangled the moment in its cradle. She was putting her foot down, her expression quite serious, even jealous… excepting the broad smile, of course. Robin gave her a narrow-eyed glare. "I'm just saying… she's already gotten hers tonight. Besides, come on, recycling lines? What kind of Casanova are you?"

"The kind you both fell for apparently, not that I've the slightest idea how that worked out." Raven opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again, beaten.

"What—" Began Starfire, before she decided better, "no… no… do not mind. I have had enough confusion for one night."

With that, Starfire staggered forward and put an arm around Raven, pulling her close with an exhausted heave. The next moment, the sleepy gesture transformed into a massive hug as Starfire slid her blood sister into an intimate embrace. Raven didn't resist, and wouldn't have if she'd been able to, because this was one time they could both use some physical contact that didn't come with tantalizing cartloads of sexual tension, which pretty well ruled out the only other person present. Their heads wound up right next to each other, and it turned out this was by design.

"Raven… I don't think I can tolerate having to share him. Do you understand?" It was a whisper, and it held no malice, only the plain truth.

"Yes, and don't worry," her answer was prompt and just as free of anger or jealousy, "I don't want to share him either."

"Oh Raven… what are we to do? This… this does not seem to have a solution!"

"We'll worry about that later, okay?"

"Er…" both girls startled and stiffened, because that voice had been Robin's. They shared a moment of intense embarrassment at being caught red handed, but both shed such concerns as Robin stepped up behind Starfire and wrapped his arms around them both. It was impossible for any of them to worry about the future then, not when that present moment was so incredibly perfect.

"Nhhh…"

"You want to say something Raven?" Robin answered the small sound sympathetically, looking forward to the few hours hence when she'd be free of that accursed drug.

"Just one more question Robin."

"Anything… just ask."

"Where did you learn to kiss like that?"

"Urg…"

"**_Yes_**," Starfire cut in with the innocence that made her so endearing, "that sounds like an excellent question. I claim no prior experience, but I can't imagine it gets much better than it was."

"Oh… well… it's like this." He smiled with the slightest tinge of embarrassment, glad that neither of them could see his face as he buried it in Starfire's glorious, fragrant hair. "Speedy… the guy never shuts up. **_He's_** got experience, and I swear, you get one beer into him and it becomes a god damn seminar. I'm probably good at a lot of things I shouldn't be… if you catch my drift?"

"Ooh la la…" Raven couldn't resist the taunt… not… not to say it was **_entirely_** a taunt. Damn, **_that_** made her blush.

"Oh Raven, I didn't know you could speak French!" Robin and Raven both grimaced deeply and then sighed, neither one even momentarily considering correcting her.

"Just what I've heard on television Star." That got her a suggestively inquisitive eyebrow from Robin that said, 'just what have you been watching?' She sent him back her patented 'I'm imagining your excruciating demise,' glower, and it was all he could do not to laugh. The whole time, neither of them loosened the grip on Starfire in the slightest, each reveling in the contact with their beautiful friend in his or her own way. Moments just don't get much more glorious than that.

"Friends, please, why do I feel as though we have omitted something? The sensation arrived with Robin's mention of… of…"

"**_SPEEDY_**!" all three shouted at the same time, breaking their embrace in a panic as they started for the bay-side ledge of the tower as one.

"You rang?" said a familiar, obnoxiously self-satisfied, if slightly winded, voice. Everybody froze again. They traced the sound of the voice to none other than the man of the moment himself, who was sitting on the ledge of the building next to Robin's grapnel hook. One could surmise from his shit-eating grin that he'd been watching them, but for a moment, everyone was too relieved that he wasn't person-jelly on the ocean boulders below to mind all that much.

"Oh Speedy, thank heavens you are unharmed!" Starfire said readily, though she did not part from Robin's side. Neither of the girls were even sure why he was here, and so they weren't about to move an inch further from Robin than they had to on his account. "I… I apologize for neglecting your rescue… is there any way I could make it up to you?"

"Tell you what guys," and Robin sighed in preparation, because Speedy had that look again, "Strike a little deal with me and all will be forgiven."

"What are you on about now?" Robin wasn't taking any chances, so he cut off Starfire before she could agree in advance like she usually did. Speedy's smile expanded exponentially, and Robin felt his hackles rising.

"Hey, it's no big deal. Just make this _ménage a trois_ into a foursome and we'll call it even. Whaddaya say?"

"Speedy speaks French too?" Starfire asked in genuine surprise, even as Robin held a hand to his forehead in exasperation and Raven grew an expression that could have struck dead a small mammal or stripped the bark off a tree.

"Ah… Raven," Robin mumbled, feeling vindictive, "why don't **_you_** give Speedy our answer."

"Yes… it would be my pleasure."

"Hey—hey—no need for that now—"Speedy was way past nervous as Raven leveled her evil eye on him and suddenly also had free reign, "can't you take a joke?"

"Oh sure Speedy, I can take a joke. In fact, here's one of my favorites. I call it jerkoff yo-yo."

"What? No… hey… not… don't… what are you doing with that rope? Hey! Uh… uh… AHHHHH!"

Starfire looked on in confusion as she hung on a grinning Robin's shoulder, because she'd never seen quite that application for forty feet of high-tensile cable and a conveniently local skyscraper. Then again, as she wrapped herself firmly around Robin while Raven was otherwise occupied, she supposed there were worse ways to spend the predawn hours.

Future—I'm rushing this off the presses to be sure, but I can tell you what's coming next, vaguely. Look forward to an explosion of 'friendly' rivalry between our leading ladies, plotting from the fellas to end the intolerable tension this causes, and the triumphant return (or rather, entrance) of those two sadly neglected, oh-so entertaining characters that so far haven't had a lick of page time in this story. We're moving into the last phase now, not that I have a clue how many chapters that's going to take, but the end is in sight. Next update is going to be… thanksgiving-ish, maybe? Oh, but before that, I'm going back to completely revise, maybe even seriously rewrite the first two chapters. The fist chapter in particular needs a ton of work to be up near the quality of the rest of the story, and I've decided that's the best application of the first few days of my thanksgiving break coming up in two weeks.

Hey, if you didn't notice, I worked my ass off on this one. I really did, seriously. So please, it doesn't have to be long and meaningful, it doesn't have to be much of anything at all, but please post a review so I can know you've been here, and hopefully, that I've entertained you. While you're at it, go back and post a review for every chapter you didn't post one for. I don't particularly care about how many I get anymore, but review counts are advertising, and I want more people to look at this story and say, 'gee, I wonder what all those people felt like reviewing for. Maybe I should read and be entertained by it.'

So remember—a review for me is actually a vote for making fanfic readers everywhere slightly happier people.


	8. The Final Curtain Rises

Sorry for the long wait, I can only site the end of Term and severe technical difficulties with my home computer as the source. Now that I'm back at school, I'll be posting with my previous redoubtable regularity. I hope people are still reading, but whatever. This one's just about done, so stick tight.

Chapter 8: The Final Curtain Rises

Somewhere in Titans Tower

"Are we clear?" asked the smallish, green-furred young man.

"I'm checking the Tower's security net now," his enormous Robotic friend answered as he examined the computer readout on his wrist. "…Hmm, looks like Starfire is replacing the window she shattered in the common room—finally. Raven's in her room, no cameras in there though, not a clue what she's up too. Though… if I had to guess… she's probably… ugg… **_primping_**."

Three sets of eyes went a little wide, then three guys shuddered slightly at the sheer oddity of that image. She took care of herself, obviously, but the idea of her being 'vain' would creep out anyone who actually knew her.

"As for lover boy, who knows? He's been finding more and more creative places to lay low since things got… tense."

"Tense? HA! I've seen suspension bridge cables with less tension than this tower! It's unbearable!" The extensively dramatic expression of desperation Beast Boy currently sported drew looks of flat annoyance from the other two in the room. He let it slide off his face and replaced it with a slightly embarrassed look.

"Well, the grass stain does kind of have a point," Speedy finally spoke up, not bothering to pick up his head from where he was leaning on the small table they were all gathered around. "I can't remember the last time I was so disgusted with Robin… well, I mean besides a few days ago when I first found out about all this. Ever since he got those two to step back from the edge, he's been walking on eggshells to avoid the question of which one he prefers. Ha! Just yesterday I saw him hop into that trick elevator shaft he rigged up just to keep from crossing Raven's path in the hallway! I mean damn, how can a guy face ninjas, killer robots, space aliens, mutant monsters, and a steady supply of madmen, then chicken out when it comes to a simple thing like romancing a beautiful girl or two?"

There was a hard silence after Speedy's deadpan moan of complaint. Cyborg and Beast Boy were shifting between glancing at him and each other, but their silent doubt about Speedy's priorities passed completely over the bowman's head. It wasn't hard considering how deeply it was buried in his crossed arms as he slouched in misery. The short one flashed the big one a last glance of inquiry, then got back a shrug of utter cluelessness, and so the two returned to the subject at hand.

"We've gotta put a **_stop_** to this!" Beast Boy's manner was purely conspiratorial as he lounged at one end of their round poker table, two other plotters taking up their own sides and forming a rough triangle. The air in Cyborg's machine shop was heavy with the scent of grease and oil, but it was once place they could be sure the objects of their secret discussion wouldn't walk in on them.

"Yeah, I think we established that part." Cyborg gave Beast Boy another annoyed look as he dealt a hand of five card stud with a speed and precision the eye couldn't follow. "I've heard of blossoming romance before, but this is just ridiculous! We leave for a long weekend and by the time we get back, this place has become an episode of "_Days of our Bold and Beautiful Hospital_." I don't know how much longer I can take it!"

"Mmm," Speedy made an indifferent sound as he slipped his cards into his hands. The red-head had definitely seen better days, as his face was now set in the kind of blank mask his serious look alike had made famous.

"Is that all you can say?" Beast Boy, his all-over fuzz brisling, yelped at Speedy. "I mean sweet God, Robin and Raven are moody enough normally, much less now that they're both googly-eyed and heartsick! And Starfire, I mean damn, she hasn't been so this high-strung since she ate that two-gallon bucket of mint-espresso ice-cream! I accidentally surprised her yesterday and nearly got my fur fried off by the starbolt backlash! Which is nothing compared to what happened when I tried to tell Raven about the sweet displays at the convention."

"Oh dangit…" Cyborg slapped his cards down on the table and covered his eyes with his free hand. "**_Please_** tell me you didn't try to tell Raven about the Arachnid Man kiosk."

"What? It was **_sweet_**! And what does she go and do before I even get to the best part of the story?"

"Somethin pretty damn bad, I hope! Damnit BB, you wouldn't shut up about that thing on the way home either, and I was ready to pitch your ass out the window within thirty miles… and I LIKE Arachnid Man! I'm surprised Raven didn't threaten to neuter you!"

"Ahhh… yeah…" Beast Boy flushed, expecting support rather than chastising from his best friend. Of course, Cyborg could immediately tell there was more too it than that.

"Oh **_no_**..." Cyborg suddenly smiled manically, causing Beast Boy to flush again as he recognized that he'd been found out. Somehow, telling them would have been liberating, but being found out was just embarrassing. "You're not about to tell me that she **_actually_** threatened to give you the old snip-snip?"

"Not that it would take much," Speedy interjected from his somber examination of his hand, "A set of tweezers and some toenail clippers would get **_that_** job done. Though she might also need a magnifying gla—"

"HEY!" a giant gorilla arm suddenly shot across the table and clapped around Speedy's head. Tufts of red hair stuck out from between green, furry fingers as the archer set to struggling and a full grown mountain gorilla brought its free fist down hard, busting the collapsible card table to flinders. Speedy quickly grappled his arms around the tree-trunk sized appendage, then rocketed forward with a boot to Beast Boy's nose. The green one, now a fuzzy teenager again, and the archer, gasping for breath, both fell on top of the shattered poker table, scattering chips in their efforts to scramble up and lunge at one another.

"STOP THAT!" metal hands the size of dinner plates suddenly gripped each teen by the shoulder and lifted them both into the air. Cyborg's robotic eye had a dangerous glow as he glowered at his friends, waiting for them to stop struggling to get at one another again. They were both breathing heavily when they finally calmed down, and he set them down hard.

"I can't believe you two! First of all, you broke my poker table BB, and you're gonna owe me for it. And you, Speedy, what the hell is wrong with you? Get off of the green man's back, before I **_take_** you off, got it?"

Speedy mumbled something about taking jokes, and Cyborg's hand was suddenly a glowing sonic cannon pressing so close to Speedy's chin that he actually had to tilt his head back and step away, his eyes suddenly wide. Beast Boy stifled a chuckle and a set of eyes, one human, the other artificial, were suddenly boring into him, forcing him into silence. When they were both successfully cowed, Cyborg returned his arm to normal and stepped back.

"It's the tension, its gettin to all of us, we just have to keep cool and talk this out. We're meeting tonight because we agreed that Robin is about as afraid of commitment as any other guy his age, plus he doesn't want to reject either of them—and who can blame him there? But anyway, the point is, if he's not gonna to do jack to calm this situation down, **_we'll_** have to. So… ideas?"

There was a very poignant silence. No one met anyone else's eyes, and someone coughed quietly, but that was about it.

"Oh man, I was afraid of that."

"No… well… it's not really an idea but…" Speedy finally spoke up, his face lifting somewhat as he overcame whatever had been holding him back. Then he saw the way the other two were looking at him, all full of hope and expectations, and he cut off again.

"Come on man, spit it out!" BB said, "Anything at all is better than **_squat_**!"

"Ohh… damn. Well, fine, I suppose it couldn't hurt to just field it. The thing that occurred to me is that the weird ass shit that went down while you guys were out of town has all three of them tunnel-visioned. I don't tend to circulate in the crowds that go for the whole 'serious commitment' approach to relationships, but one thing I've managed to pick up is that the 'soul-wrenching need' that so many people experience, the one that makes them think they've found 'their other half whom they simply can't live without,' is a total load. The feelings are often real, the idea that you'll simply shrivel up and die if you don't get the guy or girl you're after is just a crock. There's no such thing as a rejection you can't bounce back from."

"Well thanks for the lecture Mr. Lady's Man," Beast Boy was either jealous or bored by the 'wisdom' Speedy was espousing, "but how's that supposed to apply to **_our_** problem?"

"What I'm saying is, we've got to get them all to step back and take another look at what's going on. The ideal, 100 solution would obviously be for them to realize that monogamy is an illusion created by the cultural dominance of the Christian ideal that fails to account for several basics of human biology and fundamental sociology."

"Whosa whatnow?"

"Perv Boy says that they should all three date each other and stop being uptight about how that might look to others."

"Oh… **_OHHH_**…" Beast Boy was blushing as Cyborg tousled his hair with one huge hand, and Speedy went on, ignoring them both. His indifference was good, because both were giving him extremely leery, creeped-out stares now.

"I'm not saying that's at all likely, I'm just saying, that should be our own primary objective. Next up on the scales, much more likely, but not nearly as peaches and cream, fuzzy-wuzzy perfect, would be for Robin to realize, with a little perspective under his belt, that he couldn't, in good conscience, date **_either_** of them. That'd have the unfortunate side effect of leaving three people miserable for some indeterminate period of time, but it has the distinct advantage of perfect equality. Everyone is miserable, yeah, but no one is left out."

"Let's **_not_** try for that one." Beast Boy was still glowering at Speedy. "The last thing I need on my hands is Raven being 'weepy.' I'd feel obligated to cheer her up, and she'd probably thank me with a telekinetic atomic wedgie. Though… come to think of it, that probably **_would_** cheer her up."

"I'd sure as heck brighten **_my_** day!" Cyborg assured his little buddy, earning a look of disgust in return, a look he met with a smile.

"Right, right, so that's our fallback objective. If we can't get them together and we can't get plan B, and/or any further lettered plans to work, It'll be our last ditch responsibility to convince Robin to take the noble way out and deny both."

"So wait… we've got a plan B? When did we get a plan B?" Beast Boy was holding up his index finger as he wiggled his middle finger and scratched his head.

"Well I was **_getting_** to plan B." Speedy finally sounded annoyed, and the look of anger he shot at BB dwarfed anything that had been sent his way so far. Beast Boy sort of shrunk back, smiling nervously. "Okay then, unless someone else has an interruption, I'll discuss the mechanism of plan A slash B." No one said anything.

"Right. So, we want to cool everyone's jets. Robin's already trying to do that, he's got a good head on his shoulders, even if he is clueless with the ladies. That leaves the ladies themselves. For the life of me, I can only think of one thing that can distract a woman from a man she's got her heart set on."

"A clearance sale?" Supplied Cyborg.

"Armageddon?" Supplied Beast Boy.

"No, and **_no_**. The only thing that can distract a woman from a hot guy, is another hot guy."

"Wait—just what are you gettin' at?"

"Just think about it guys, what we need to do is divert them from being focused on Robin. Not only will this allow us to observe their reactions and see how they might really feel about him when it's not a life and death crisis, but it may well let them examine how they feel themselves. That's plan A. The ideal would be for one of them to back away from our man and _viola_, the situation resolves itself. That's plan B."

"Okay, so let me see if I've go this straight!" Beast Boy shouted in what very much appeared to be anger. "Plan A consists of somehow **_seducing_** the two women competing for B-Wonder, who also happen to be our **_friends_** who **_trust_** us. Plan B would then be us sitting around **_hoping_** that one of them will just up and **_decide_** to let Robin loose so the other can get her chance at a 'happily ever after' with him. Is that **_right_**?"

"Uhh… yeah."

"Sounds good, when do we start?"

"Hold it—wait, just wait! I can't believe we're even discussing this!"

"Chill Cy, you asked for ideas, I provided ideas. Maybe you've got some new plan of your own to suggest?" Cyborg glared at Speedy, but said nothing. "Right then. So now we just need to decide who'll do the romancing."

"And I suppose you respectfully volunteer **_yourself_** for the project, right?" The human side of Cyborg's brow creased as his glare became a glower of exasperated disgust.

"HA!" Speedy surprised both his allies by laughing, "I wish! Only in my fervent, lucid, extremely **_graphic_** dreams would I get anywhere near those two. No, Robin would find some creative way to make my existence entertainingly miserable if I even looked like I was making a pass at either of them. I'm not going to be the patsy—err, volunteer."

"So I guess… I guess that leaves… just me'n Cy…" Beast Boy had a look of near catatonic dread plastered over his quickly greening face. It looked something like he was trying to blush and pale at the same time, and caught firmly in the middle, all he managed to do was sweat.

"No, no, no, neither of you will do at all. Not even almost."

"Hey, what's with the hating man?" Beast Boy did a one-eighty, utterly affronted by Speedy's flat rejection, so much that he completely escaped his towering dread. "Think I'm not up to it? Think I can't lay the charms down, make the ladies swoon? I'm **_the_** ladies man around here!"

Cyborg and Speedy just looked at him for a minute. Eventually, he got a sense of what he'd just said and calmed back down. Frowning expansively, he leaned against a workbench and crossed his arms in a huff.

"Right… so like I was saying, Raven and Starfire have already labeled all of us. Barring some kind of life-altering event, we're all classified strictly into the platonic categories. The thing about women is that they don't work the same way we do. Once they've slotted a guy into the 'friend' category, it takes intense circumstances to move us closer than that ever again. Not like us guys, who'd move from friend who is a boy to boyfriend in a hot second if it would mean a little nookie."

"Hey, speak for yourself ya little pipsqueak!"

"Oh? Well, Mr. Chivalry here says he's above all that! Can you honestly tell me that if Raven suddenly started coming on to you, you'd shut her down for her own good, because you're her **_friend_**?"

"I—"

"Ap-ap-ap—honestly now!"

Cyborg stopped his reflexive, automatic answer and shut his mouth. He sighed, seeming to think about what Speedy had asked him, using one metal hand to scratch the human side of his bald pate rather idly at the same time. Eventually he huffed and glowered at Speedy.

"Well, I gotta say, if Raven came on to me alluva sudden, I'd be majorly weirded out. But… I don't suppose… I necessarily… turn her **_down_**."

"And there you have it! Thank you for your honesty, and now back to the issue of labels. I am the cute but tactless 'hearthrob's buddy,' plus I'm pretty sure Raven finds my life philosophies offensive… though I can't imagine why."

"Oh, I **_wonder_**," Cyborg said, still looking upset over the general course this discussion had taken.

"You," Speedy pointed at Cy, "are the reliable, trustworthy, charming, **_older_** brother. Which makes you," Speedy pointed at BB, "the cute but insufferably obnoxious **_younger_** brother."

"Just keep talking man, we'll settle this later."

"I look forward to it, but back to the discussion at hand, please. Basically, none of **_us_** will get the job done. That means we're going to need some backup."

"But who are we gonna call? Who on Earth do you think would do us this kind of favor, especially considering the… uh… volatile nature of the ladies right now? Somehow, I don't think they run an escort service for this kinda thing in the telephone directories."

"Ah, but you see my dear Cyborg, your old pal Speedy has already thought all of this out. It just so happens that there **_are_** two perfect candidates that owe me and Robin some big-time favors. You actually know one of them already, but I can assure you that the four of us go way back. All the way back to our respective sidekick days, actually."

"Hold on… you don't mean…" Cyborg had sort of a half-stunned half-excited expression as he realized who Speedy must be talking about, while Beast Boy just looked on in confusion.

"Indeed I do! Our patsies—er, there I go again—our **_brave volunteers_** will be none other than Aqualad and Kid Flash, the other two fellahs from the original Teen Titans. I'll get em both on the horn… if they refuse… well… I've got more than enough on both of them to blackmail them into helping out, though considering our man Robin's dire circumstances, I'm **_sure_** that won't be necessary."

"Hey—wait—you and Robin have known Aqualad for **_how_** long? And who the heck is Kid Flash?" Beast boy was once again giving Speedy a magnificently skeptical look, and he answered it by sighing and shaking his head.

"Come on buddy, I'll explain it all over again while I track down their numbers. Heck, I might even find some way to work Wonder Girl into the scheme—then we'd have the **_whole_** gang back together. Anyway, a little parade of prime super-dude to test the proverbial waters and possibly even shake one of 'em loose from her Robin death-grip sounds like just what the doctor ordered."

The other two guys just eyed one another and shared a silent doubt. It was pretty clear that neither of them were at all behind Speedy's initiative, but equally clear that neither of them had a better idea for challenging this intolerable situation.

A Seedy Dive

_Thunk_

As that dull, harsh sound bled through the air, a razor sharp shuriken slowly vibrated to a dead stop in the rotting wooden wall. Another two quickly followed, then four more all at once, until finally the metal barrage ended in utter silence. The shards of sharpened steel were arranged in a crude happy-face configuration on a dartboard made from a contraband fan-poster of Robin, the Boy Wonder.

_Breee, Breee, Breee, Click_

An old-style phone rang and was quickly answered. The blue-gloved hand that plucked the crappy old plastic receiver from its mount gripped with uncommon tension, but lifted with perfect leisure as it placed the device to its owner's ear.

"Is it ready?" the masked man asked curtly, as though he already knew who was at the other end of the line.

"Of course." The responding voice was calm and laid-back, a perfect contrast to the first man's grim tone. "I said I could get it for you and I did. I never default on my debts Ravager, and though I still hate to think about it, I owe you quite a bit. The devices and magical objects you ordered should arrive there this weekend, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Assassin's Guild. I must admit though, you certainly asked for some odd supplies."

"Yes, well, I have some very specific plans in mind. You see, I'm going to destroy a man."

_Thunk_

A throwing knife punctuated his statement by sprouting murderously from a spot squarely between the two shuriken 'eyes' sticking out of the Robin poster. The entire dartboard shuddered for a few seconds, then spontaneously split in two along a crack created by the knife, tearing the poster apart as it went.

"Ah revenge, it's not how **_I'd_** choose to spend my last days on Earth, but I can certainly understand the appeal. Which reminds me, these are your last days on Earth. The contract was finalized last night."

"Huh." Ravager was quiet for a long moment. He'd always understood what would happen when the Assassin's Guild discovered that he'd ratted out the guy that hired him, but it was somehow different to know, beyond doubt, that he was going to die. He could probably run for a while, perhaps even hide, but the guild would spring for someone good, one of the best surely, considering his own status, which meant that his death was only a matter of time now. Interestingly, the only thing he felt was curiosity. "By chance… is it anyone I know?"

"HA! You wish. Guildmaster was so ticked off to hear you broke rule one, he put up the big money and lured a certain someone out of retirement. You should be honored man, you're going to have your card punched by a living legend. The best of the best."

"No **_shit_**?" Ravager was suddenly exhilarated, this news bringing him a perverse comfort. "He really managed to get a hold of Deathstroke? Deathstroke the **_Terminator_**?"

"The one and only. Nobody thought he'd actually take the contract, he hasn't accepted one in almost a decade. But apparently, whatever he's been into lately, organized crime or whatever, it all went south, and he happened to have some free time on his hands when Guildmaster put the call through."

"My my… well, that might almost make it worth it then. I'll get my revenge, destroy this little punk and everything he wants to protect, and then I'll get to meet the very person who made me want to become an Assassin. I might just be able to die a happy man after all."

"Yeah, right, whatever. Anyway Ravager, we're even now. Dead even. You're never going to hear from me again, and for that matter, this conversation never took place. I don't need you getting your looser stink all over me, there's no future in associating with a sinking ship like you. The only reason I even took your call was because I owed you. It'd have driven me nuts if you'd checked out before I could repay you, now that that's off my back, you can rot in hell for all I care. Have a nice life… whatever's left of it anyway."

_Click_

The man on the other end of the line hung up, and, a look of bemused contemplation shading his eyes, Ravager did the same.

"Deathstroke the Terminator… I'll be damned."

With that last mumbled statement, Ravager fell silent, his hands moving to toy with a few more of the varied metal objects on the coffee table next to his tatty old overstuffed chair. There were another four dartboards decorated with Robin's visage lined up along the wall, and he had endless hours yet before he could put his plan for revenge into motion.

_Thunk, Thunk, Thunk_

Titan's Tower: Outside, eighty feet off the ground.

"Well, this certainly isn't how I expected to spend my Thursday afternoon… at least not if you'd asked me **_last_** Thursday." Robin was talking to none other than himself, there being no one else around, and that, by chance, being exactly the idea. One didn't hang off the side of a skyscraper if one was feeling sociable, after all, and it just so happened that Robin was **_not_** particularly feeling sociable just then. "But hell, at least it's a nice day."

He was right, of course, it was an uncannily warm day for this time of year, and the sea breeze was refreshing without being chilling. Indeed, one couldn't have picked a better day to cower from two overzealous and exceptionally proactive love interests. And it was that thought that brought him back to the reason he was so unsociably hanging from the side of a building.

"AHHHGGG! What am I gonna DO!" The sudden bellow was an exceptionally necessary stress reliever, and it wasn't the first time it had been so incredibly appropriate that he'd been unable to hold it in. That exact shout is what had given him away when he'd been hiding in the elevator shaft, and a similar one had rendered his 'above the ceiling panels' hiding place equally useless. If he'd been able to spare a drop of concern for anything but his immediate problem, he'd probably be worried they'd find him here too after a scream like that. Instead, he just readjusted the link between the grapnel he was hanging on and his belt, then considered the course of events that had lead him to his current unenviable position.

Oh, Monday morning had been enjoyable enough, as it were. Everything had seemed so perfect, both women had come to grips without killing themselves, each other, or (and this one was paramount) **_Him_**. They'd taken the news that he held feelings for each of them in stride, without flipping out further than they already had, and he'd been glad, because that had been the number one concern on his list. Then he'd learned that that was very far from what **_should_** have been his number one concern, as the dream had ended right then and there, and this nightmare week had touched off.

It seemed innocent enough at the start. In fact, for the first, oh, twelve hours (most of which they'd spent asleep in their respective rooms) it was as though nothing had really changed at all. Starfire didn't look at him without blushing, Raven had an absolutely unusual expression all the time (a smile to be exact) and each of them went out of her way to stand in close proximity to Robin whenever they were in the same room as him. Then came the moment of truth, when both of them had happened to be in the same room as him at the same time. One closed in on him from either side, they noticed one another, traded petty stares, and nothing had been the same since.

Starfire, of all people, had opened up with a snippy, rather inconsequential comment or another, which Raven had chosen to take as offensive, responding in kind. It went back and forth, and in a few seconds, it was a shouting match. A bewildering blink of an eye later, it was a tug of war, but not one of those girly shojo tug-of-wars…no. A super-strong alien warrior princess and an alter-dimensional half-demon telekinetic sorceress were at odds over him, and he was lucky to still have his arms attached after that nightmare.

Since that moment, there had been no rest, no respite, no escape from their constant pursuit. Each was relentless, remorseless, and utterly ruthless, accosting him with utterly inhumane questions that began with words like 'which' and 'who,' words he was **_so_** not ready to answer. After a 'heated exchange' had broken out outside his room, an exchange involving fluorescent green lasers and violently relocalizing lumps of plaster, he'd lost it. Shouting at both of them had stopped the destruction, but it had the unfortunate side effect of refocusing their attention on him with those hard questions. He couldn't even hide in his room after that, as they simply stood outside rightly accusing him of cowardice. So he'd snuck out of his room to let them taunt the air, and it had been touch and go ever since.

"Raven, come quickly, I believe I heard something from outside!" The sound of that beautiful, damnable voice came muffled through the windows, and immediately Robin was in motion.

"Of course!" Raven quickly responded, and he knew he had only seconds to beat another hasty retreat. "The outside walls, why didn't we think of that sooner? Come quickly, before he can move again!"

But Robin was already gone. Well before Raven could phase the two of them through the wall, he'd slipped back inside and removed every trace of his passage. A tingle along the back of his neck told him they must still be on his tale, so he took off down the corridor at a full sprint before ducking into a storage closet. No sooner did he turn into the room than did he hear the sound of two annoyed women landing in the hallway he'd just vacated, and he stifled a sigh of relief as they began to make loud sounds of frustration.

"I do not believe this!" It was Starfire to vent her fury first. "How can he have evaded us yet again?"

"Calm down!" Raven's voice was murky ice water. "We were right on his tale, he can't possibly have gotten out of this hall. The only thing this area is used for is storage, and all the warehouse doors are in the halls perpendicular to this one. He can't have gotten around the corner, that means he must have ducked into a room on this hall. And look, Starfire, at the one and only door on this hall."

Robin recoiled from the open door like he'd been struck, kicking himself and pulling at his hair as he realized the truth of Raven's words. He'd ducked into a dead-end utility room, the only door on the entire hallway, and now he was trapped! Determined not to go down without a fight, he quickly searched for a place to hide. His heart sank then, because even in a room packed with exposed pipes and old junk, there really wasn't much to choose from.

Right Outside

"Are you certain he will be within this room?"

"**_Dead_** certain." Raven gave Starfire a look at her supremely unpleasant smile, then stepped past the open door and made a sweeping motion with her cloak, inviting the other woman to go first. Both stared at the shadowy blank of the darkened store room for a moment, then Raven reached over and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Not to be discouraged, Starfire loosened her shoulders and held out a hand. In a moment, her fingers were glowing with hot green light, and she led the way into the darkness.

The room was musty with the heavy stench of mildew, old water pipes lining one wall while long stacks of rusty steel oil drums lined another. An old toolbox lay on its side spilling rows of various sized socket-wrench bits across the floor, and there was a puddle of something scummy spreading slowly from the wall with the pipes. Every surface was harsh, bare concrete, and the room was **_cold_**.

Soundlessly, Raven followed one step behind Starfire, the two of them crowding together a little closer quite by accident as the sheer imposition of the dank room pressed in on them. Starfire cast a solid beam of green light from side to side, slowly searching the walls for their quarry, each of them equally determined to finally run him to ground and get what they needed out of him.

As Starfire began to examine the steel barrels, Raven noticed a slight motion off to one side of the light beam, and she quickly grabbed Starfire's wrist and jerked it in that direction. Just before the light touched it, Raven spotted the lid of one drum click shut, as though someone had been peeking out and was just now ducking back in. She had also seen a flash of green and black, not unlike a certain someone's arm, and from the sudden tension in her hand, Starfire noticed it too. She started to take off toward the drum, but Raven had a devious thought, and she still held her arm, so she pulled her back. When Starfire looked back in annoyance, she only had to see Raven's strictly unpleasant smile to quell her protest. In a moment, she caught on too, and they were both sporting rather mischievous grins.

"Well Star, I don't know what to say," Raven began, sounding completely natural as she used her grip on Starfire's wrist to ease the light beam slowly off of the barrel and to one side. "It looks like we missed him again. I don't have a clue how he does that, but I suppose he's been practicing at it long enough that we shouldn't be surprised."

"Oh… yes… he is a sneaky one… Robin surely is…" Starfire didn't even almost match Raven's acting skills, and Raven fought not to roll her eyes at her board-stiff delivery and utter failure to pick up on the theme. When they argued, it drove Robin to distraction, and forcing him to listen to a little tiff would be a perfect way to get back at him for making them chase him all over hell and back.

"Damn Star, I'm **_sorry_**, I honestly thought he came this way, you don't have to break my arm!" As Raven feigned some fear into her voice, she gripped Starfire by the chin and forced her to look her in the eye. She made a few angry faces, then an encouraging gesture with one hand, glancing at the barrel suggestively. Starfire stared at her wide-eyed for a few long moments, and then smiled in comprehension.

"NO Raven, this simply is not acceptable!" She shouted much more cleanly as she finally caught on. "This entire mess is not to be tolerated, it is unacceptably intolerable!"

"Got it—outraged—but I don't see what I'm supposed to do about it!" Raven was ready to stamp on Starfire's foot, because it was clear she hadn't gotten the drift as well as Raven could have hoped.

"What do you mean? This entire situation is obviously your fault Raven!" Starfire shouted before Raven could do anymore silent stage directing, and there was enough of a hint of actual anger there to take Raven completely off guard, throwing her off her own plan entirely.

"What? How is any of this my fault? **_I'm_** not the one that fell for Ravager's trap! **_I'm_** not the one that tried to jump Robin's bones like some horny **_skank_**! **_I'm_** not the one that didn't have the guts to ask Robin out **_months_** ago and head off this whole damn situation!"

"**_Shivren_** **_Grislack_**!" Starfire shrieked, and her hand flashed through an arc like a baseball bat, lashing Raven's face with a cracking sound and propelling the smaller woman away like a shot. Raven hit the pipes on the far wall hard, then fell to the hard concrete in a slump of cloak. Starfire seemed to come to her senses as she saw Raven crumble boneless to the floor, and she flashed over to her friend, face white with shock. "Oh no—Raven, please, answer me?"

"**_Bitch_**!" Raven snapped, and Starfire was the one sent flying this time as a tree-thick tentacle of black energy smacked her like a whip-crack and blasted her into the stacks of old oil drums. There was a terrible noise of buckling steel and rattling, clanging, empty drums rattling around a concrete box, then silence and utter dark as Starfire's light was extinguished. For a long time nothing moved.

With a resounding explosion of light and sound, Starfire erupted from a pile of shattered oil drums, her entire body alight with green fire as she shrieked in rage like a banshee out of hell. Only one corner of the room failed to be emblazoned with azure light, because it was a pit of inky black darker than any shadow, a pair of deep red spots gazing out at the light show.

Like the wail of a steam whistle, Starfire's war-cry came to an abrupt halt, punctuated by a dull rush of air as she started flinging shattered oil drums at the shadowed corner of the room two-fisted. The rain of ancient steel pattered off of the hard shadows like so much water, then were returned in a wash of black energy as Raven retaliated. The utterly petty squabble had nothing to do with finesse and everything to do with days of pent up jealousy and spite, so that two fantastic warriors were reduced to the relative equivalent of a sissy-slap fight, the hunks of metal pattering off of each of them quite harmlessly.

Finally, the steel drums Starfire was using as ammunition were all too beat up to serve her purpose, and she blindly reached out to the nearest whole barrel to reopen the offensive. In her rage, she failed to notice the importance of this particular barrel, and she hefted it into the air one handed, tossed it effortlessly, and gave it a shattering bicycle kick that would have made a Brazilian striker weep with joy. The barrel buckled like melted cheesecake, and then went zinging in at Raven, who deflected the attack with a black shield that sent it spiraling into one of the concrete walls. It ricocheted loudly off that wall, then the floor, then another wall, and then skipped up to slam against the ceiling, where it sheared in two from the horrific strain and gushed fountains of dark, warm fluid around the room in bubbling spurts. The wash of wet warmth splashed across Starfire and Raven in turn, and for some reason that wasn't immediately obvious to either of them, they each paused.

Starfire was the first to investigate the distraction by holding a hand up to touch her face where she'd felt something slosh over her. When her hand came away wet, she stared at the fluid for long moments in utter uncomprehending shock. Raven had let all of her power bleed away, and she ran a hand through her hair, which felt heavy, and another across her bust, where more of the mysterious warmth was apparent. Both of her hands came away matted with the dark, hot liquid, and she wandered over toward Starfire as she puzzled over why her ears were ringing and her heart was thundering. In the green light from Starfire's body, it was impossible to tell what color the warm wetness was, and for some reason, a very large part of both women didn't **_want_** to realize what they were covered in.

Finally, Starfire and Raven both looked up and into one another's wide, stunned eyes. Then both of them simultaneously turned slow, creeping looks over at the corner the top half of the last barrel had fallen. Starfire raised one shaking hand to illuminate the wreckage, and the sight caused both women to start back in nauseating terror. The crumpled barrel was pinched in at one end, a huge puddle of the dark fluid creeping slowly out of the destroyed end. The lid had also come free as it hit the floor at last, and another flood of the liquid was issuing forth form that end. That didn't matter to either woman, however. In fact, as they stared in wide-eyed horror, only one thing registered to them, and that was the long, muscular armor-clad arm that was laying twisted, limp, and mangled out of the shattered barrel lid. That arm meant it had been Robin's barrel… which meant Robin had been in the barrel they'd obliterated… which meant that when it sheered in half… which meant the stuff they were covered in was Robin's…

BLOOD!

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" both women shrieked at the same insant, screaming long and loud, as though the sound alone could stave off the inconceivable, nauseating horror of what they'd just done. The terrible, miserable accident was beyond more than either of them could even conceive of, and they just stood their, screaming over and over again, gasping for air through the heart-consuming miasma of pain pouring in on each of them.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" both women reached a new peek of pitch and volume as they started to claw and spasm, trying with desperation-strengthened orgy of motion to expel the liberal coating of blood and gore both were sheathed in. for a moment, the fact of what they were coated in overcame the horror of what they'd just done, and they flailed hands in fits of flicking and disgust-driven hopping, trying to get if off in any way possible. All they really managed to do was flick bits of it every which way, coating one another in fine flecks of the dark, hot fluid.

The screaming broke down into uncoordinated shrieks and wails, and then they seemed to spot one another again through it all, noticing one another covered in muck by the flickering green light of Starfire's hands. Immediately, through the haze and horror, they leapt into one another's arms and began to weep powerfully. As they sobbed, they began to scream and wail Robin's name over and over again, on and on, unending as Starfire let her hand go out and they were plunged into the caress of darkness.

The Ceiling

Robin looked down from his hiding place on the ceiling and gritted his teeth. Then he ground them… then gnashed them… then finally, something inside him snapped. All at once, all the tiptoeing around people's feelings and dodging around hairy issues of choice and expectation caught up with him, weighing in on him until he couldn't stand it, couldn't endure it, and he just broke. The moment that certain something exploded within him, a sense of relaxation and reassurance like none other spread slowly from his heart outward. It washed through his body, dispelling the agonizing uncertainty and replacing it with a burning determination. He adjusted his hand and foot holds on the ceiling pipes, then settled himself for the opening of the final act.

"ENOUGH!" he shouted, somehow managing to overpower and even quell the piteous wailing of the two women below him. He amplified the shock factor of his voice by reconnecting the electrical wires he'd snipped, bathing the entire room in a curtain of blazing fluorescent light. Then he let loose his grip and flipped gracefully to the floor. "Here! I'm here, okay? Just calm down!"

To describe the look the two women were giving him as 'shocked' would be flatly insufficient. As completely wrapped around one another as two humanoid beings could be, utterly coated in muck and actually grinding it into one another's clothing as they crushed together, they looked very much like lovers caught in flagrantly indecent circumstances as they stared Robin wide-eyed with pupils narrowed to pinpricks by the sudden bright light. Robin stood there, letting them stare at him while it sank in, and for the first time in a long time, didn't bother to restrain himself. He whipped out a mini camera from his utility belt and immortalized the moment in ultra-high fidelity digital media.

"Robin?" the expected, cliché, and somewhat comforting 'name-as-an-interrogative' finally arrived, and Robin let out a slow breath of relief as he realized that yes, they were going to be okay.

"Right on the money. And thanks for the memories you two, I should be able to extort a small fortune from Speedy for this set of prints."

"What?" Raven took the verbal lead, Starfire still too stunned to do more than gape. "But… but the barrel… the arm… the blood…?"

"The blood," Robin knelt down and dipped two fingers into a glob of the muck, then raised it pack up to his face and took a deep whiff. "If you'll note the odor and color, you notice that it's warm crude oil. I suppose that would be easy enough to overlook in the dark considering the whole room smells like this stuff, but hey, whatever, I'm not complaining. I don't think even Hustler could have manufactured a more erotic sight than you two right now."

It wasn't just an annoyed taunt either. Raven and Starfire were coated in the mealy grease, long black streaks matting their hair down in damp strands and staining their clothing where they'd been pressed together. They looked like leftovers from a mud wrestling match, and it was not at all an unpleasant view. They might have been blushing as they hurried to examine each other, but it was hard to tell through the black goop coagulating on their faces.

"The arm," Robin went on, stalking past them as they stared like he was some kind of novel exhibit in a museum, "is inflatable." He picked up the now obviously fake appendage from where it jutted out of the shattered barrel, exposing its lack of a body. He then popped it, forcing the air out with a mildly humorous farting noise.

"The barrel," he kicked the nearest piece of said object, "was a decoy. You were supposed to concentrate on that while I slipped out the back. When I planned the caper, I didn't realize you two were out to murder me."

"Oh no, Robin, it's not like that!" Raven was the first to recognize the not-entirely sarcastic nature of that deeply hurt statement.

"**_Shut up_**!" Robin snapped, and his eyes alone were enough to keep either girl from uttering a single further peep. "I've had more than enough of this little farce, do you hear me? I held out hope that you two would learn to get along, mostly, I'll admit, out of a cowardly wish that I wouldn't have to decide anything **_for_** you. It's become painfully clear how much of a **_mistake_** that was!"

Both women stared at him with hurt in their eyes, like he was beating them around the face rather than just shouting and glaring. They realized now that their feuding had been much more of a strain on their man than they'd ever considered, but it was far too late for mere remorse to do a damn thing.

"Well I'm done. Maybe all it took was a little pantomime of the worst-case-scenario to kick some sense into me, because I'm done stringing this out in the hope of either of you grow into a bigger person. It's clear now that it was wishful thinking for me to believe that either of you would get over petty possessive jealousy and let us work this out like decent, mature people!"

Both women were just about ready to return to tears at this point, and Starfire was practically whimpering. Neither had ever seen anything approaching this level of pure vitriol emanating from Robin, particularly not directed at either of them.

"But… I'll be damned if I'm not still hopelessly in love." The two girls sighed at hearing this, as though their own worst fears had just been averted. "That said, I've truly and thoroughly had **_enough_**. I'm giving you two one more chance. **_ONE_**! This weekend. Each of you is going to get one date. One on Friday night, one on Saturday night. I'll choose one of you on Sunday, based on criterion that no one else is going to be privy to. Is that understood?"

Both girls nodded slowly.

"Fine. Let me say just one more thing, however. I am so past being fed up with this that I will not hesitate to dump both of you like a bad habit. If you two give me anymore trouble before Sunday—if you bicker, if you pester me, if you try to sabotage my dates—I will leave both of you high and dry so fast, heads'll spin. Team cohesiveness be damned, I'll let us all **_rot_** in heartbreak before I'll tolerate one more day of this **_nightmare_**! Is **_that_** clear?"

Both girls nodded again.

"Good. Call it in the air!" he shocked them both by flicking a coin upward right out of the blue. For once Starfire had the initiative, and after more than a year of settling weight room priorities with Cyborg in just this way, she even knew what to do.

"Heads!" she snapped before Raven even realized what was going on. The coin finished its twirling journey as Robin snatched it from the air and slapped it down on the back of his other wrist.

"Hey! I wasn't ready!" Raven complained, earning a heart-stopping leer of undiluted malice from Robin. Her jaw snapped shut with a click and she stepped back, cowed.

"It's probably better that the girl **_without_** psychic powers called the coin toss anyway," Robin said, never apologizing for his unpleasantness. He removed his hand from his wrist and looked down. He smirked, and then showed both women the classic profile of Mr. Washington. "Friday or Saturday, Starfire?"

"Uh… uh…" Starfire looked at the expression of anxious anticipation on Raven's face, then took a wild guess. "Saturday!"

"YES!" Raven snapped in victory, pumping a fist in the air as she grew a disgustingly self-satisfied smile.

"No wait—Friday!"

"Friday it is then."

"Phew!" Raven seemed to slump down, wiping some crude oil off her face and smiling a much more genuine smile of relief. "It's a good thing I actually wanted Saturday."

"Err—"

"Too late Star, Raven got you fair and square. Next time try thinking things through a little more decisively."

"Yeah Star, why would Robin want to date an indecisive bubble-brain?" There was no real malice in the taunt, but it pricked Starfire badly, and she blushed and teared up in the process.

"And you Raven," Robin suddenly turned on his heel, giving her a brand new dirty look, "how about you try a little compassion? She's you're best friend in the world for God's sake! Am I the only one here who remembers that? My God!"

Robin turned and began to walk away in disgust. Behind him, a battle of nasty stares erupted quite spontaneously between the two grimy, mucked-down women. It degraded into an oil fight, globs of coagulated crude flinging across the room and splattering wetly over the two already drenched women. Unnoticed by them, Robin paused at the doorway, fairly quivering with rage.

"**_I-WILL-DUMP-YOU-BOTH_**!" he screamed without turning around, enunciating every word. The women paused in mid-pitch, then dropped their oil globs and looked away from one another with childishly petulant expressions. Robin slammed the door and left them to clean up.

Unnoticed to all, a tiny green fly took off from one wall and crawled through a crack in the door.

Elsewhere in the Tower

"—and that's how it went." Beast Boy had an expressive leer as he remembered what the two women looked like drenched in oil, and Speedy sported a similar one as he felt his machinations coming together beautifully.

"Hehehexcellent!" Speedy cackled, tapping the tips of his fingers together in sequence. "I didn't even have to suggest it to him! One way or another, this problem will be over and done with by Sunday!"

That Seedy Dive

"—Sunday." Ravager stated the one word with confidence as he pulled a few knives out of one of his Robin-dartboards. "One way or another, everything will be settled by Sunday."

Future:

Two more chapters, then maybe a bonus chapter. Rest assured that it wont take me any three months to finish this now that everything is operational again.


	9. The Best Laid Plans

I stopped writing this because I figured I'd lost everyone's interest with my last super-long delay. I figure I'm pretty right on that account (7 responses to the last chapter to date, ouch) but someone actually got a hold of me and pestered me to finish this up, and well, one is enough. Here's part 9 of 10. I am going to write the finale eventually, but there's just one thing I gotta make clear. I post online so I can receive feedback—an invaluable resource in my ongoing efforts to improve myself. Please try and post critical comments with specific reference to what was good and/or poor, it not only helps me write better in the future, but it motivates me to update more quickly.

Chapter 9: The Best Laid Plans

Robin straightened his daring crimson tie, ran a hand through his hair, and leaned over toward his mirror. With exaggerated care, he checked the sides of his designer sunglasses to make certain the low-key holographic matrix correctly altered his facial contours and eye color to an unobtrusively bland disguise. When he was certain he was just as protected as he was behind a mask, he stepped back and did a final body check. His elegantly tailored Armani was black silk, turning his lean body into a razor-edged, sleek shadow. He was slick and graceful…a shark, maybe, or perhaps even… a bird. With a final spritz of cologne behind each ear and wrist, he pocketed his comb and exited his private bathroom.

So, Starfire had made her choice, planned their date, and he'd been asked quite politely to dress formally. Probably the only request that would have surprised him more would have been to come naked—though really, he probably could have seen even that one coming too, considering recent events. The end result had been an opportunity to dust off some old undercover investigation gadgets he'd never gotten to use, and an equally rare opportunity to pull out his civvies. Living with a millionaire playboy had elevated his tastes, and while his first choice of garb was body armor and his second was the kind of casual wear he could work out in, when it came to being seen in public, his preference was definitely a large-tag suit. So, while he'd been surprised by her request, he was far from upset. When he considered the opportunity to see Starfire in full formal regalia, he moved from not upset to 'almost able to forget the larger problem.' It would have to do.

Robin stepped out of his room and into the hall, trying hard not to sigh. After a little bit of effort, he even managed to not-frown, fixing his face into an impassive mask to go along with the hologram. Masks… always he wore masks. Not for the first time, he wondered what enabled him to demand honesty and trust from women that had never even seen his real features—then he set that can of worms aside to be tackled after the immediate crisis had resolved. He had to focus, because the resolution _was_ coming, and no matter what he screamed in their faces, it would be him alone who determined if the resolution was a complete disaster or… well, a more localized tragedy. Whoopee.

"Freeze!" the word jerked Robin up short. His natural reflex was to attack, but he recognized the voice readily enough that he came to a stop instead. "Alright buddy—who are ya and how the hell did you get past my security?" Cyborg had him covered, and the well-dressed young man slowly put his hands up as he listened to the sonic cannon slowly charge about an inch behind his medulla.

"Oh come on Cy, don't tell me you don't recognize our main man?" That was Speedy, completely chill, sauntering up from behind the huge mechanical man.

"What?" Cyborg took his eye off of Robin to stare his confusion at Speedy, and that was all the chance he needed. One gut busting heave of a judo-throw later, all of Cyborg's protective armor transformed into dead weight that bashed into the hall's floor with a terrible crash.

"Hey Cy, how's the weather down there?" Robin was smiling now, no amount of internal turmoil able to make the situation less than hilarious. It took Cyborg a moment to recover from his unexpected trip, but when he did, he was clearly having trouble deciding to be amused or angry. He wound up settling for just confused.

"Damn man, you're looking pretty sharp! Who woulda figured a little punk like you would clean up so well?" Cyborg watched the virtual stranger in the suit brush himself down to check for damage to his silks after the tussle, and then felt the awkwardness of the situation close in on him. "Heh… right… well anyway, tonight's the big night eh? You looking forward to this? I mean, I haven't seen Star yet, but I _know_ you gotta be pumped!"

"Oh, _yeah_ Cy!" Speedy stepped in with a sarcastic drawl before Cy could notice the frightening scowl spreading across Robin's lips. "Of course he's pumped! He's about to delve into the kind of emotional snake-pit you usually only find on television and in cheap romance novels! His decisions in the coming days will affect not only himself, but two women he's sworn to protect from all pain and harm. If he messes up—hell maybe _even_ if he does everything _perfectly_, not only will his life be ruined, but so will theirs! On his shoulders rests the fate of three young romances!" Speedy suddenly clenched his hands over his heart and spun in a graceful pirouette. "Ah, young love, so passionate, so volatile, so _Ugya_!"

Speedy doubled over as Robin's snap kick connected with his solar plexus. He was laughing as his eyes watered at the shocking pain, and sure enough, Robin's meltdown had been averted. The three of them together then made their way out into the common room amid a hail of conversation.

"So—no shit—" Speedy wound out his anecdote, "this is an expertly upsized version the exact suit Robin wore that time in Sicily! And let me tell you, he was getting all the ladies at Don Mezzoloni's party. I was in a total ass-drought the whole night, right up until Mr. Popular here sent a little of his runoff my way."

"Oh come on! I was trying to shake those bloodsuckers all night! I needed you to distract them so I could sneak out and get Mezzoloni's American contact list."

"Do you hear this guy?" Speedy gestured theatrically, patting Robin on the back as he heckled, "popular _and_ modest! Thanks to this saint, I wound up distracting those ladies _all night long_… if you catch my meaning!"

"No, Speedy," Cy was eying him ruefully, "What exactly _do_ you mean?"

"Hey, yeah, tell us! How did you 'entertain' those delightful young women while I was risking my ass?" Robin's expression was completely sardonic, because of course, he already knew what Cyborg suspected. "Keep in mind Cy that the average age of both us and them at this point was around fourteen."

"Well… that is…" Speedy, foiled, rubbed his knuckles nervously as he chuckled, stalling. It worked. "Hey! Look!" he extricated himself by latching onto the most providential distraction anyone could possibly have wished for. The two guys grilling him glanced quickly where he pointed by reflex, and then did symmetrical double-takes, mouths gaping.

The woman that walked into the common room was enough to make any guy's brain shut down for the duration. The first thing one noticed—well, nevermind, that would depend on the person. Let's say that the first thing _Robin_ noticed was her hair. That's a lot different than what Speedy noticed first, for example—but back to the subject at hand.

Starfire, because there wasn't anyone else it could _possibly_ be despite _overwhelming_ visual evidence, had performed art incarnate to her hair. What had once been a mass of lustrous red falling ruler-straight down her back had become something vividly textured. She had arranged hundreds of thin, individual braids artistically around her shoulders, the vast mass cascading around her in a veil of strands while a second group draped enticingly over her right eye and settled over richly tanned skin.

Her gown was something else _entirely_, and accounts for where Speedy's attention became instantaneously absorbed. A cocktail dress at heart, the violet frock sparkled with layers of sequins. Where it diverged jarringly into the land of adolescent dreams was in its _cut_, which could be most immediately described as 'yowza.' It was a halter, the single strap holding it up around her neck became the two strips of fabric that draped over her chest and held up the skirt, leaving one hundred percent of cleavage and midriff bare. She was smiling radiantly as she watched three men loose all control of their jaw muscles, and spun once as she got closer to give them the full effect. The dress was completely backless, her astounding braids the only thing between the world and an expanse of undeniably perfect skin. She stood in front of them with a half-knowing, half-embarrassed look in her one visible eye and cocked a hip. This had the pulse-pounding affect of displaying a long cream stocking through the thigh-high slit in the skirt. The tiny corner of bare skin at the top of the slit just above the lip of the stocking caught Speedy's eye and…

"Uhhh…" Speedy turned around abruptly, adjusting the layers of spandex over his suddenly unbearably uncomfortable armored pants. He hurried to daub at a spontaneous nosebleed as the encounter continued without him.

"Good evening Robin, you look most handsome, though I almost didn't recognize you in that disguise. Are you ready for our date?" Starfire seemed more and more disturbed by the unwavering stares she was getting from Robin and Cyborg, and she began to blush slightly under layers of makeup as she brought her bare arms up to cover some of the skin being so openly ogled. Her usual attire probably showed off just as much skin in pure square inches, but never before had she been so acutely aware of the effect her display of… well… _herself_ had on her male friends.

"Humina…" Robin coughed once incoherently, his roving eyes still overruling every other neural process as he drank in the sight that had ambushed them all. It wasn't until a sharp elbow from the still-turned-around Speedy caught him in his left kidney that he managed to snap out of it. "Erg!—uh—I mean… _hey_ Star." He frowned and changed his focus to the carpet while he kicked himself mentally until he had some semblance of his poise back. "Yeah. Yeah I'm ready," he recovered with at least a little dignity left, "And might I say… you look… absolutely _gorgeous_."

Rather than answer, Starfire's blush just deepened by a half dozen shades as she found herself suddenly unable to meet his gaze. Taking the initiative at last, Robin stepped forward and linked his arm through one of hers as it continued to make an uncharacteristic play for modesty. At the touch, Starfire looked up, startled, and she stared into his sunglasses like she could see the eyes just behind them. Her own eyes literally sparkled with the play of luminous bio-solar energy behind the emerald lenses. It was just one of those moments.

"Alright lovebirds, break it up for a second and give a gander over thisaway!" Speedy's bellow broke the tension sizzling through the atmosphere like a splash of cold water, and the two of them turned his way with a matched set of embarrassed smiles. "Oh… whoops. Probably should have saved the 'lovebirds' comment for Saturday night. Ah well. To commemorate the two of you looking like just under a hundred and sixteen million dollars as a collector's set, I deputized myself as official photographer for the evening. Think Fast!"

Robin had just enough time to look utterly startled as Starfire gripped him as close as possible with her linked arm and held up her free hand in a peace sign.

CLICK!

Speedy's professional 35mm automatic lit the room with a powerful flash as Robin recovered his poise just in time for Cyborg to burst out laughing with Speedy quick to follow. Starfire dropped her pose to look at them both in guarded confusion, and then turned to Robin, who was giving her a warm smile.

"I do not understand… was that not an appropriate pose for a photographic portrait here on Earth?"

"Uh, well, you had it right I guess." Robin couldn't stop himself from scratching his head in mild embarrassment himself as she began to pout in uncertainty. "It's just most people go for something a little more restrained given the circumstances." Starfire's pout became slightly hurt puppy-dog eyes that fixed on Robin and wrung out a look of ultimate guilt for having dampened the night for her already.

CLICK!  
"Speedy!" Robin turned in a burst of frustration as his brother in arms immortalized his first screw-up of the evening. He raised a fist in threat as Starfire clung to his other arm, bewildered.

CLICK!

"_Speedy_!" Cyborg was laughing openly again as Starfire looked on in confusion, unwilling to relinquish the arm she'd been offered under any circumstance, even as Robin strained hopelessly against her super-human grip for a swipe at Speedy's candid camera.

"Okay, _okay_! I've got what I wanted anyway!" Speedy finally stopped aiming the camera their way as Robin made a Birdarang appear out of nowhere and flipped it in a trajectory that would have clipped the red-head's lens if he'd been slower to dodge. "Just—Star, if you could do me one more favor before you two kick this night of in earnest?"

"We don't have time for this Speedy!" Robin was glaring daggers as his buddy continued to stretch out this first-real-date hazing thing he was pulling.

"No Robin," Starfire surprised everyone, except maybe Speedy, when she let go of Robin suddenly and said, "Anything for a friend. What would you have me do?"

"Really? Well Great!" Speedy leapt back from Robin and readied his camera again as the two other guys stood back in suspicious confusion. "You can start out by walking back toward the elevator there, then turning your head to look back at me." Starfire clearly didn't get it, and she cocked her head, sending her braids into a marvelous cascade. Rather than inquire further, she just complied, putting some space between her and Speedy, then turning her head to glance back at him.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK! Speedy's camera erupted to life the second she assumed the classic pose.

"Now give me a little spin—and smile!" Speedy shouted excitedly as he capitalized on the pure stunned shock that had struck the boyfriend and honorary older brother present. Starfire obeyed by bemused reflex more than anything else as he continued to snap, snap, snap away.

"That's right, work it girl! Looking—oh—just fantastic!" Speedy dodged out of the way as Cyborg went high and Robin went low, the two collapsing into one another as he took up a new position to the side, camera clicking away as fast as it could. "Now lean forward and give me a pout!"

Starfire leaned forward all right, her whole dress shaping and molding delightfully around her in the process, but her look was more one of bewilderment as she watched Speedy dodge a flying kick from Robin and a charging clothesline from Cyborg, his camera never silent for an instant.

"Oh, Yes! Yes!" he shouted theatrically as he skipped over grasping hands and ducked a wild punch, "The camera loves you Star-baby! Now give me angry! Rowr! Like a _tiger_—hup!"

A final sweep-kick from Robin took Speedy's feet out from under him as Cyborg reached out and snatched the camera before he even finished falling. Quite without ceremony, the stony-faced heavyweight ripped out the film, then crushed the device in one powerful paw. Robin just brushed himself off and contemplated further retaliation as he watched Speedy hold his hands out in surrender and smile a devilish grin of 'you got me.'

"Uh… is this some kind of custom—"

"NO!" Cyborg and Robin shouted simultaneously, and then realized who they were talking to and hurried to apologize before Starfire could take it the wrong way. The three of them quickly organized themselves and caught the elevator down to the garage, leaving Speedy to lie on his back with a most unexpectedly satisfied look on his face.

After a moment, he reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a nondescript little box. Incidentally, this was the device that had been recording his photographs digitally while his 35mm made a convincing show of being a plain mechanical camera. He kissed it.

"No, thank _you_ Mr. Remote Digital Memory Device! Ah… those ones are going in my _private_ collection…" Hey lay back in contemplation of a job well done until a sudden rasp in his ear caught his attention.

"This is… um… Starry-eyed to uh… Cyrano," a gentle female voice whispered uncertainly into his earpiece, and he sat up to attention with a smile on his face. "Come in Cyrano, how have I performed so far?"

"Cyrano here, you've been doing just perfect Starry-eyed! Sorry for the antics, but if I didn't pull something early, they'd be on their guard for the rest of the night. I'm afraid they just don't trust me to leave well enough alone."

"I… I do not believe I really understand, but I think you for your assistance none the less!" Starfire's voice was heavy with sincerity, and Speedy couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of guilt now. Just a slight one, though. "Could you go over the 'things to remember' list one more time while the others are arranging our transportation please?"

"Sure thing! Step one, look fantastic. You have that down for certain, so never loose confidence! Chances are he's way more nervous than you are." Starfire mumbled a rather embarrassed sound over the line, and Speedy went on. "Step two, conversation is key! Remember what we talked about yesterday and you should be fine. Until things reach the critical moment, silence is your enemy!"

"Right!"

"Okay, step three…" Speedy hesitated for a moment. "You know, you're _still_ not ready for step three."

"But—"

"No buts, I know what I'm talking about. Just… just make sure you stay on his arm like glue. If you're sitting across from him go for hand contact and if you're sitting next to him lean into him. Casually intimate contact is your number one trump card!"

"Um… yes… about that. What exactly is the meaning of this 'intimate' again? I do not think I quite understand—oh, they are back!"

"Okay," Speedy tried to stifle his sigh of relief at the bullet once again dodged, "If you have any questions or concerns, cultural confusions or whatever, just subvocalize into that LASH mic we rigged up under your braids and I'll be able to hear you. Keep on going like you have so far and you're got him all wrapped up! Cyrano out!"

Speedy cut the mic and stood up slowly, his mind working furiously through the plan until he confirmed the next step. He hit his mic again.

"This is Cyrano to Animal Passion, come in Animal Passion!"

"This is Animal Passion," Beast Boy came back with a slick edge to his voice, "that's a big ten-four. Breaker, breaker, four-niner, alpha, bravo, charlie. You set 'em up and we knock 'em down. You rock 'em and we sock 'em. You tag 'em and we bag 'em. You—"

"Can it! Jesus, what's the matter with you?" Speedy was snappish under all the pressure he'd taken on, but he was smiling.

"Heh, sorry. Got a little carried away there. Anyway, the bird is in the nest. Phase two is go!"

"Good, very good. You contact Super Decoy One while I 'prime the pump.'"

"Roger that, Animal Passion out!"

Speedy's smile settled in as everything continued to fall neatly into place. With easy determination, he walked the halls of Titan's Tower until he came to a very specific door. Leaning back against the wall next to it, he craned his arm around and knocked gently three times.

"Are you ready to get started in there?" Speedy's question was answered by a long silence.

"Uh… actually…" The subdued female voice was nervy and upset, but still had a hard edge. "I'm not so sure about this anymore."

"Huh? What? You did get the message earlier with the alterations to the plan right? I had to change it when I got wind of what Starfire had planned for tonight."

"Eh… I got the note, yeah. It's just…"

"Now, now, Raven, _you_ came to _me_ for help. I told you then, and I still believe that this is your best chance. You do remember what we talked about, right?"

"Well… _yeah_…"

Yesterday Night

Speedy was kicked back, cackling to himself in subdued delight as he considered his array of schemes. He was so relaxed, in fact, that he didn't notice the knock at the door until it was repeated with pounding intensity. Eyebrow arched, Speedy gripped the chair's arms and flipped acrobatically backward to his feet, moseyed over, and leaned against the wall with one arm before triggering the door open. Waiting for him on the other side was Raven, the look on her hooded face a compound of nerves and doubt as she shifted her eyes up and down the hallway.

"Uh… Raven… uh… _hello_?" the confusion stenciled across Speedy's face depend as Raven ducked into the room and took a final glance back through the halls before slipping up against his wall and triggering the door shut without a whisper. Then she turned slowly to look at him. "Eh…heh… not that I'm not _delighted_ to be visited by a beautiful woman on a steamy night like this but—"

"Cram it Speedy." The relaxed you man suddenly found himself trapped in an ironclad telekinetic grip, and a flash of panic washed through him as he imagined what she might possibly have on him. Lord knew he had enough underhanded dealings on the table right now to merit a lot more than a sudden bungee encounter over rocky cliffs. "I'm going to make this quick and simple," Raven's eyes glowed from the shadows of her cloak, and Speedy frantically resisted the urge to vacate his bladder. Then the power bled from narrowed orbs as her gaze softened to something closer to sour rather than maleficent. "I… I want your help."

"I _swear_ I didn't—what?" Speedy caught himself up with a jerk before he could incriminate himself, "My… my help?"

"Yeah, and you're not going to tell anyone! Do you understand me?" The telekinetic grip paralyzing his body and dangling him in the air constricted suddenly, the blood rushing to his head as he was slowly crushed, "not _anyone_!"

"_Hurk_—got—it!" Speedy managed to choke, and she dropped him like a sack of rice, his dead weight flopping to the floor. After gasping for air a while, his mouth cut into auto-drive. "Heh, you certainly have a way with persuasion. Anyway, consider my home your home—which, incidentally, this situation renders rather _literal_—"

"Oh shut up." Raven pulled back her hood, and Speedy noticed instantly that she was wearing a layer of makeup applied with a rather inexperienced hand. She'd been… practicing.

"Ah… I think I begin to understand what this unexpected call is all about… so… uh… _help_? What kind of help could you want from a feckless little twerp of a marksmen like me?" The sarcasm in his voice was measured to be grating, and it was answered by a dagger glare that left him physically chilled. His smile evaporated as he took in the emotion behind that glare, and he held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, fine, I'm serious now. Just tell me what specifically you need help with and I'll do whatever I can. I guess I owe you that much after being such a pain in the ass the other day."

"That and more… but let's not go there. What I need is…" Raven hesitated, crossing her arms and turning toward the bare expanses of the guestroom. She mumbled something incoherent.

"Uh… what's that?"

She mumbled again, slightly louder, and Speedy felt torn between the overwhelming desire to taunt her in her embarrassment and the fear that even reasonably asking her to speak up would merit retaliation. In the end, he erred on the side of caution and couched his comment in his most reasonable tone and argument.

"Heh now, come on, I can't help you if you don't talk to me! You've already got a death threat ensuring my secrecy, so it's not like you have to worry about this getting around."

"Yeah…" Raven's face reflected the slow victory that statement wrought for her confidence, "Okay. I want… I want dating tips, _okay_?" She spat the last, daring him to laugh or taunt, and relaxed slightly when he did neither. "I… I'm not giving up Robin without at least knowing I put everything I possibly could into this. The _problem_ is…"

"Hey, no _prob_!" Speedy surprised her by bursting with enthusiasm. "You're talking to a genuine… err… at least _self_-_styled_ ladies man, after all. That, and I've know Robin since he first got into the capes and mask lifestyle. You came to the right man! Why, with me behind you, this whole thing is practically in the bag already."

Raven watched his open and honest smile with unflagging suspicion. Speedy put all of his being into not sweating through that whopper of a lie, and eventually Raven's critical stare abated. He managed not to gasp in relief, but only barely.

"So, first off, we have to talk about—"

"Hold it! Before we start talking about anything, I just want to know…" Raven seemed to droop for a moment, then pulled herself together and finished, "do you think I honestly have a chance here?" Speedy stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, before finally latching on to the first completely honestly sincere sentiment he'd had since this discussion started.

"Trust me Raven," his smile wasn't faked now, "You may have started with sort of a handicap, but as of the time things blew up, you and Starfire are running the closest tie I've ever seen. From here, it's going to be all about whose feelings are truer, and of course, who wants it most. Now, the question is, are you ready to do what it takes to _prove_ that you want Robin more than Starfire?"

Raven was quiet for a moment, considering the question with a lot more thought than he'd expected. Finally, she looked up and nodded.

"What do I have to do?" Over the next ten minutes, Speedy told her, in detail. When he finished, she had a look of undisguised apprehension frozen over her usually calm features. "Uh… is… are you _sure_? There isn't any other way? I mean—"

"Hey, you asked for my opinion, I gave it. If you do that, you will be doing everything possible to prove your right to that guy's affections. There may be other ways, sure, but you'd have to figure those out on your own. Are you saying you don't want my help after all?"

"I didn't say that!" Raven quickly appended, then settled back into her open bundle of nerves. "I didn't say that."

"Okay. So just do what I told you and we'll meet up tomorrow night after Robin's left to give Starfire her chance. That's when the operation will start. Get the things I mentioned and be ready to go. Remember, it's _your_ time Raven, time for you to get what _you_ want for a change."

She paused completely for a moment as she took those words to heart. Looking slightly more comfortable, she nodded and took her leave, vanishing into a swirl of darkness before his very eyes. He waited for a moment to make sure she was really gone, then sighed in quickly mounting relief.

"Oh man… what am I getting myself into here?" Speedy said, completely to himself, as he walked back to the chair he'd started the encounter in. "Still… this does present more opportunities that I could ever have imagined. Hell, who am I kidding? I just want to see Raven once she's—"

The sudden sharp knocking at the door startled Speedy out of his lecherous reverie and onto his feet. He scratched his head in confusion as he walked back over to his door and triggered it open.

"Was there something else you wanted—" he started, before he noticed which woman was standing outside his door this time. With a sudden sinking feeling, he matched the nervous expression on her face perfectly to Raven's as she slipped into the room and did a final glance up and down the hallway before shutting his door without even acknowledging him. The weight of deja'vou was oppressive.

"Um… Speedy… I apologize for entering so suddenly, but I have come here tonight for the most important of requests!" Starfire was blushing furiously, and more importantly, she wasn't threatening to break him in two or broil him in his own juices. In his eyes, this merited a modicum of restraint on his part.

"Oh no, no trouble at all Starfire!" Speedy felt a mask of a smile fixing on his face as the pure unreality of what was happening here began to impress on him. There really wasn't any doubt that she was here for the same reason Raven had just been, and the sudden expansion of his opportunities was utterly mind-boggling. "So what can I do for a radiant thing like you on a hot night like this?"

"Ah," the playful weight behind his reflexive flirting washed off of a shield of obliviousness, "If I am being perfectly honest, I must admit that I require your help Speedy. I… I need…" She mumbled something under her breath, and Speedy couldn't stop himself from smacking his head in frustration.

"Gah—dating tips, right?" Starfire's eyes snapped open in shock as he pinpointed her source of embarrassment effortlessly, and Speedy hurried to get serious before she could catch on.

"Ah—yeah, you came to the right place believe it or not. Yeah… yeah… no problem. HA!" Starfire was startled by his sudden bark of enthusiasm and the excitement twinkling in his eyes, shrinking back from him in discomfort. "No—no I'm sorry. It'll be no problem to help you Starfire. To tell the truth, I've been rooting for you _all_ _along_. Have a seat and we'll start planning right away. I think I know just what we need to do."

Starfire allowed herself to be swept along, not exactly certain how things had turned out the way they were, but way too relieved to have an expert in her corner. Speedy's mind was racing, plans forming and reforming, the world suddenly his oyster.

Back in the Present

"So are you going to let me in or what?" Speedy pressed the issue, knowing that a challenge to her pride would be the quickest way to motivate this one. "We _are_ on a limited timetable if we want to intercept the target. _Hey_, are you listening?"

"Fine! Just… just hold on one minute." The delay was more than a minute. It was actually closer to five, and Speedy could almost see Raven building up the courage to take this next step. The anticipation was torture, as this of all things was what he'd been looking forward to all along. Finally, with a swish, the door slid open.

For a minute, Speedy thought he'd gone blind. In reality, his eyes had just gone unfocused for a moment in their desperate attempt to take in every part of the image he'd been presented with at the same time. He did a double-take, clearing his vision just in time for what he was actually seeing to sink in. His breath came out in a slow wheeze, and he just stared.

The woman in the doorway bore about as much resemblance to Raven as a carnation bore to a rose. Both were great to look at, but one had an undeniable air of burning, sweaty, pulse-throbbing passion. This, right here, right now, was the second one… no doubt.

Her dress definitely started at the throat, the fabric wrapping around her neck in a perfect choker that accentuated the curve of her neck in the _most_ delightful way. From there, a single ribbon of fabric twisted from the middle of her back, came across her front to cover her bust, wrapped around again, and then came around at her hip to broaden out into a skirt that didn't quite reach halfway to her knees with slits that made it within a bare inch of something obscene on both thighs. Her legs were pale and smooth delight all the way down to the three inch pumps. Every inch of the black fabric clung to her skin like the two were one and the same, no matter how she moved, defying gravity and all normal rules of fabric dynamics. When the light caught it the right way, the black flared with blue highlights that eluded accurate description. Finally, Raven had done… _something_… to her hair, and rather than laying limp in functional blue rows, it sprang up in a wild volumous mass of wavy wonderment.

"Ehheh… nnnn…" Speedy's brain had been taken out of the loop, and the part of his body that was doing the thinking at this point wasn't terribly articulate.

"Speedy? Uh… are you alright?" Raven, prepared to face taunting at best and maybe even outright laughter, was startled into actual concern by the absolute astonishment drooling from Speedy in heaps. Stepping into the doorway, she tilted her head and shifted her weight to one foot in a way that shook something loose in Speedy's guts.

"Shh…._yeah_!" Speedy wheezed, and in retrospect he blessed the foresight that had led him to inhale the astringent into his sinuses that was choking off the projectile nosebleed that would usually arrive right around this point. "I mean—" his voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old on a first date, and he coughed and beat his chest, focusing in on the pain to clear his thoughts. "That is to say, _yes_. Yes, I'm… I'm just peachy. Thanks for asking!"

"Seriously, Speedy, you're freaking me out here!" Or so she said. For some reason, let's go out on a limb and say an unexpected welling of feminine pride, she'd grown a smile that was quickly moving from guarded to delighted. Something about the way Speedy's eyes were trying to crawl out of his skull and cling to her mostly bare midriff brought simultaneous urges to blush, slap him, and… of all things… _giggle_.

"Seriously Speedy, weren't you the one on my case about our timetable?"

"What? Oh… right. Well, gee, sorry for staring, but—I mean this in the nicest possible way—WOW!" He accentuated that with an eyebrow twitch that shifted things just a smudge past the line, and Raven's smile evaporated. "Seriously Raven, you could charge _admission_!"

A casual cuff around both ears spun Speedy around and reestablished the relationship they were supposed to be maintaining. He apologized with a sheepish look and she nodded. Then she grinned again.

"So, do you think this will do the job?" Raven's eyes were lantern-bright with enthusiasm she'd never expected to feel for this plan. "Is he going to be _jealous_?"

"Is he going…?" Speedy repeated her question in disbelief, as though he couldn't imagine she'd even have to ask. "Damnit Raven—_I'm_ jealous! Color me friggin' Green here lady, 'cause _envy_ is my middle name! You look… well… words fail. If you want complete honesty, the fact is that you're going to be the glittering beacon that sucks up the attention of everything with testicles you come within eyeshot of. And… well… probably more than a few things _without_."

"UG! Okay, that's enough of that!" Raven threw her arms up in exasperation to ward off the raunchy images Speedy had broached. "Let's just get this show on the road."

"Right-o pretty lady. Are you ready to meet your 'date.'"

"Ah, about that…" Raven's reluctance rallied with fervor as this part of the plan made an appearance again. "Are you sure? I mean, it has the potential to go so wrong!"

"Please just trust me okay?" Speedy waited until he got a reluctant nod of agreement. "Cool. Finish up here and we'll meet out in the common room. Trust me, you'll like this guy. He's a little flighty, but unlike most people in our line of work, he's got _class_."

Titan's Tower Common Room

"Speedy—my MAN!" the stranger in the suit leapt from his seat where Beast Boy in his team uniform was proffering a minor ass-load of various snack foods. The too-fast-to-see motion kicked up a wash of air that knocked the little green dude off his feet and left him covered in nacho-cheese and cashews. Unfazeable, he dipped the cashews in the nacho cheese and made the best of the situation.

"Hey, hey, hey—lookin' mighty fine there zippo!" Speedy strode confidently up and clasped forearms with the young man, whose brilliantly orange and yellow striped tie complimented his overpoweringly red hair. Other than those two features, his suit-with-holographic-projector-sunglasses guise left him looking as dashingly nondescript as Robin had.

"Yeah, well, you owe me one for this! I can't just pick up and do you a favor every time you holler—I'm a big-time super-hero these days. I figure another year or two and the boys _upstairs_ will be scouting me!" Speedy rolled his eyes as the single most superly-powerful of his old crew showed his usual good-natured conceit. "Hell, if it weren't for the fact that this is all for Birdso, I might have told you to take a hike you shameless little tit!"

"HA! You just _wait_." Speedy matched Kid Flash bravado for bravado as they caught up for the months they'd gone without a chance to hassle one another in as compact a space as possible. "In a few short moments, not only will you eat those words—you'll be falling over yourself to _thank_ me!"

"Hmph. We'll see!"

"Yeah," Speedy's confidence seemed to weigh on Flash, but his natural chill counterbalanced nicely, "We'll see alright. Now if you could do me a _huge_ favor," Speedy leaned over and whispered something in his ear while Beast Boy sat the whole thing out in the heap of snack food.

Giving Speedy a quizzical look, Flash vanished in, y'know… a flash. There was a rush of wind and an imperceptible blur, and then Flash was standing in exactly the same spot he'd vacated, only he was munching on a chilidog with exaggerated care for his fine suit.

"All done," he mumbled through a mouthful of MSGs and pork byproduct.

"Good… good." The devious look on Speedy's face was disquieting to say the least, particularly as he tapped the tips of his fingers together in sequence. Flash and BB didn't have time to grill him though, because that was when Raven hit the scene and the prophetic words Speedy had given her as the straight truth came quite unerringly true.

Flash locked eyes on her, did a hyper-speed double take to check his eyes, and then let the full effect overpower him. His right leg began to twitch in an ultra-fast nervous motion that fanned up the air all through the room. Beast Boy, for his part, could have taken the place of a certain "Home Alone" child star with his jaw locked in full extension and his hands mashed to the sides of his head. Raven took only a few steps in before she noticed the gaggle of eyes fixed on her, an utterly alien sensation that she was not at _all_ sure she appreciated, and froze. For a long moment, there was only the two sides staring at each other, the low-key buzz of Flash's hypersonic vibration, the silent scream stretching Beast Boy's jaw, and a mysterious, muffled clicking noise.

Having pre-prepared himself for this, Speedy recovered first, glancing down at Beast Boy and clacking his jaw shut with one hand. He held it for a second, and the moment he let go, the slack muscles let it flap right open again. He turned to Flash, noting the fanning effect of his nervous leg-tick, then edged over and stepped on his old friend's foot, pinning it to the floor. Like a twanged instrument, the vibration spread from Flash's foot to his whole body until it his head and he froze. Before anyone could utter a peep, Flash grabbed Speedy by his armor and zipped him to the back corner of the room, Beast Boy's frozen look of disbelief mutating slowly into complete fascination as he slowly craned his neck to the side to get more angles on the vision enchanting him.

"HOLY CRAP!" Flash whispered/shouted to Speedy as they leaned into the room's far corner for privacy. "You didn't mention that she was… was…"

"Hotter than the mind can easily comprehend?" Speedy supplied, grinning.

"HELL _YEAH_!" Flash glanced over his shoulder at Raven, who was cultivating a look of nervous exasperation as she began to detect a pattern for the evening taking shape. "Have I mentioned recently that I _love_ you, Speedster?"

"Do tell?" Speedy was in full gloat as he watched Flash swallow his pride with gusto and fervor.

"No, seriously, you are my number _one_! You are my blood-brother! I… I'm damn glad you called me."

"I had a feeling you'd say that. Hurry up, don't keep her waiting. And remember: _class_."

Flash nodded and winked behind his shades, then straightened his tie and spritzed some breath freshener to chase away the odor of chili. He loosened his neck, and was _gone_.

"Hey there Raven!" he started out with a smile as he reappeared next to her in a wash of displaced air. "You are looking… uh… is 'Finnnnneeee' an appropriate adjective?"

"Hmm, _no_." She answered without malice. "But thank you for asking." She was smiling again. It would have been kind of weird to find a woman who didn't grin after a shot like that, no matter how little it was appreciated.

"Wait-wait-wait… _Raven_? That's RAVEN?" Beast Boy sounded utterly shocked, not that he hadn't been looking that way for a while now. Speedy and Flash _winced_. Raven's eyes narrowed dangerously. Beast Boy, as usual, was the last one to recognize his folly.

"What's that supposed to mean!" Raven muttered acidly, and at last BB seemed to comprehend what he'd just spoken. His look of horror was way late, and Raven was walking toward the elevator in a huff before he could even halfway articulate an apology. Flash zipped ahead of her in a blur offering a gentlemanly elbow with an invitingly arched eyebrow. Raven inspected both for a moment, and then grudgingly linked her arm with his as they hit the call button, Flash's foot tapping in high-speed impatience. Beast Boy was still fumbling when the elevator dinged at their floor.

"Uh, Raven, that's not what I meant!" With a sigh, Raven held the elevator, glancing over her shoulder to silently ask 'then what did you mean?' "That is—I meant—I just didn't know you could clean up to look so…" staring at her from behind, perfect, milky skin highlighted by flesh-hugging black strips of her winding dress, he was at a total loss for words.

"Hot?" Speedy supplied, when he noticed the stall.

"Babalicious?" Flash gave it a try, and they launched into a spontaneous competition.

"Heart-meltingly gorgeous?"

"A tear-inducing delight for the senses?"

"Eye-candy of the most ecstatic degree?"

"An overpowering tour de'force of feminine charm?"

"Actually guys," Beast Boy finally found his stride, "I think I meant something like—" he twisted and bloated, and was suddenly an enormous timber wolf. The next moment, he threw his head back in a baying howl that sent shudders through its entire audience.

"Bravo!" "Well said!" Speedy and Flash clapped for his brilliantly articulated commentary.

"Would you all _stop_ that!" Raven barked, blushing furiously. She turned her attention back to Beast Boy. "Well. Now you know." Without further comment, she hustled Kid Flash onto the elevator and let it close without turning around. Beast Boy was left with a crooked frown, scratching his head. He turned and looked a question at Speedy, who shrugged.

"That could have gone better," he sighed, picking a stray cashew out from behind his ear and munching on it. "Damn! If I only knew she could look like that when she wanted to… I might have made a move on her a _while_ ago."

"HA!" Speedy gave that comment its due, earning a dirty look. "HA! Again." Now BB was just down, and Speedy shook his head. "Well dude, all I can say is: pray. Things may yet turn out with you getting a chance to pick her up on the rebound."

Beast Boy flipped him the bird and walked away.

"Okay, fine! Just be ready to pack it up and join me for the night's operation!" Speedy called after him.

When Beast Boy was gone, Speedy stood still for a moment twiddling his thumbs. Eventually, he sauntered over to the kitchen counter and withdrew a replica of his eradicated 35mm camera from its hiding place under a partially overturned breadbasket. Right where Flash had hidden it at his request earlier. Chuckling to himself, he held the camera close to his chest.

"Hellooo- Raven!" he said, oozing with self-satisfaction.

"Hellooo- Speedy!" Raven's voice came from behind and below him, and he practically jumped out of his skin. She emerged the rest of the way out of the floor with a look of easygoing fury etched under her makeup. "Come on—did you think I wouldn't notice a breadbasket tracking me across the common room making clicking noises?"

"Heh. Can't blame a chap for trying eh?" She matched his resigned smile with a rather mean one of her own.

"Sure I can!" The camera flew out of his hand and floated between them in a halo of black. A moment's concentration from Raven deconstructed the device down into its dozens of individual parts.

"Well, you got me! Now go on, you've got a rival to spite and a beau to win."

"Not quite yet." Speedy's blood chilled at Raven's self-satisfied expression. "First of all give me your digital backup."

"Digital whatnow?" Speedy lied through his teeth. "I'm afraid I haven't a clue what you're—" the digital backup unit jerked out of his belt and few instantly to Raven's outstretched hand. Speedy deflated like a popped soufflé.

"Don't worry, this is just an insurance policy. If you hold up your side of our little deal then there's a chance, albeit remote, that you'll get your little souvenirs here back."

"Really?"

"No." Raven caused the digital media card to disintegrate before his eyes, then blew him a kiss and morphed into a shadowy bird, vanishing into a swirl of black power. Speedy watched her go with a look of utter defeat.

After about a minute of waiting to make sure she was actually gone, he wiped that look off his face and sighed in contentment. Fiddling with his body armor revealed the wire leading from the ultra-high resolution micro spy camera in the weave of his chest plate down to the _genuine_ digital memory unit secreted in a place that, regrettably, Raven was probably never going to go.

"Oh Raven," Speedy made tut-tut noises as he palmed his gold nugget, "You really need to brush up on the fine art of misdirection." He in particular treasured the probable panty shot he'd just scored from the high angle she'd assumed to grill him from. She must have forgotten she wasn't wearing a leotard this time. Too bad for her. "Right. Enough play, now its time to make some magic."

Robin and Star, Arrival

For transportation, Cyborg had readily volunteered to play chauffer. When the question of discretion had been raised by a nervous Robin, a Robin who still didn't know what the night's destination was going to be and was starting to sweat over it, the answer had been simple. In diffident response, Cyborg had smiled and pulled out his keychain. With the push of a button and a beeping sound, Cy's baby transformed from a custom arch-top hot rod into a candy-apple red mustang coup convertible. Er, _really_ convertible.

A quick hologram latter, Cyborg was an enormous dude in a snazzy business suit sharp enough to not be _completely_ put to shame by Robin. That took care of being recognized all right—no one would be expecting Teen Titans to look like they did right now, so pretending to be comparatively normal youths out for a ritzy night on the town would be… literally… child's play. Now if only Star would come clean about their itinerary, Robin could start to pretend to enjoy himself while he wasted away under the weight of guilt for stranding Raven.

This was around the time Starfire, who was sitting next to him in the back of the T-convertible, made a rather unexpected move. The first thing Robin realized, there was a hand on top of his where it was pressed into the seat between them. The next thing he knew, both of her arms wrapped around his and he'd been yanked mercilessly into full-on contact, oodles of bare tanned skin pressing into his suit as braided hair draped over his shoulder. He glanced over slowly, eyes wide, knowing what he was going to see but somehow unwilling to actually gaze upon it. He couldn't hold off the inevitable however, and he finally looked down at the blushing, angelic features couched on his shoulder. Robin melted like cheap margarine, his face flushing ever bit as deeply as hers.

It was suddenly so clear, and his nerves settled like they'd never been upset in the first place. Of Course! He loved Starfire. In fact, he loved her a lot! As that warm, comforting thought nested in his hindbrain, Robin suddenly felt like everything was right with the world. He had a beautiful woman who loved him decked out like every man's most elaborate dream (not the _deepest_ dreams—those are way more simple and clearly not for public consumption) hanging all over him! What in the world was there to worry about?

That was the euphoric state of mind he'd achieved by the time Cyborg pulled up in front of the _Chateau Blanc_. The finest restaurant in Jump City, reservations backed up something like three months. Starfire, in defiance of her full-length skirt, hopped out of the back seat with what Robin suspected was more than a little help from her flight power. He'd had a chat with her about using their powers while they were incognito, and now he followed her out with easy agility. With a smile, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her down a discreet two inches until her pumps contacted the ground. This had the not unpleasant side effect of placing his hand on the bare skin above her hips, and she made a small sound of pleased shock before wrapping her own arm around his waist and dragging herself flush against him. Robin gave Cy a signal and he flashed a thumbs up before peeling out up the casually busy streets.

"So… Chateau Blanc huh? I gotta say, I'm a little surprised. Impressed as hell, but a still a little surprised too. Just how—"

"Oh Robin," Starfire's eyes seemed to go slightly blank as her hand came up to press against her free ear, "I—That is, I have my ways. There is no need to worry about how I obtained permission to dine here tonight. I desired a 'date' location where extravagance would not seem out of place."

"That's good." Robin's brow furrowed in suspicion, "It's good to see you planning things out like that."

"Please Robin!" Starfire could smell his suspicion leaching away the good mood he'd finally fallen into when she applied Speedy's admittedly watered-down 'step three' advice. "Please." The powerful pleading in her voice brought Robin's natural caution up short. "Tonight is… it is my night, yes? I only wish to enjoy it with you."

Robin took one look at that expression, recalled the sensation buzzing along his entire body just from their embrace, and he relented. No doubt this night bore the influence of at least one of the guys satellite to his messy romance, but for Starfire at least, he could let the interference go. With a grudging look, he squeezed her closer and the two of them walked _carefully_ (they were embracing so hard they might as well have been attached at the hip) up the rolling marble steps to the enormous glass doors in the even more enormous glass façade guarding entry to the vaulted building holding _Chateau_ _Blanc_.

Titan's Tower Computer Room

Speedy checked his surveillance equipment one last time as he prepared for what he was pretty sure was going to be the most insanely difficult con he'd ever run. When he recalled that this was only day one of two, he got more than a little strung out, so he kept his mind off of that as best he could as he flipped switches and dials until the array of monitors displayed just what he wanted. Among the many views he was granted were included badly distorted first-person camera feeds from mini-transmitters he'd secreted on each of the operation's subjects. One feed watched Cyborg cruise around as he waited to pick up his charges. Three more gave varying views of a busy high-end restaurant. The last two feeds were blank, and this was driving Speedy nuts. The operation was beginning now—he'd already had to talk Starfire through assuaging Robin's ingrained suspicion—and Beast Boy _still_ hadn't gotten the equipment into position.

"This is Blackfeather to Cyrano, how are we doing here? It's been too long." Raven's voice came straight and agitated from Speedy's number three audio feed, and he hurried to switch his mic's channel to three.

"Sorry Blackfeather, you're right. I was distracted checking my equipment, but you're _very_ right. My sources say the bogie is in the house. Operation 'A Friendly Reminder' is _go_! Repeat-GO!"

"Ten-Four. Blackfeather out."

Speedy was on the clock now, and he switched to channel two with a nerve-calming deep breath.

"Come in Starry-eyed. Starry-eyed, we have a problem."

"Problem?" The line was muffled because the voice was a synthetic reconstitution of the sub-vocal whisper the LASH mic was picking up. Speedy could _still_ hear the panic.

"Hey, hey, it's probably nothing. It's just that I've noticed that Raven isn't… uh… _here_. She might be up to something. Consider yourself warned."

"Acknowledged. I fear not—Raven would do nothing to risk Robin's ire the night before her own chance. Starry-eyed out."

Speedy shook his head, almost, but not quite, feeling bad about all of this. He switched to channel four.

"Animal Passion, come in! What the _hell_ is taking so long with cameras five and six? If they're not online soon—and I mean _stat_—we're going to miss some of the all-time great reaction shots!"

_Chateau Blanc_ Fire Escape

"Oh I _know_ you're not hurrying me!" Beast Boy shouted into his elaborate radio headpiece. He was wedged onto a ladder with an enormous black case in both hands hanging beneath him. "Do you have any concept of how heavy this damn thing is? I just finished a cross-city wing sprint as a pterodactyl carrying they damn thing, so _I_ know!"

"Hold that thought while I run and get my tiny violin! On second thought—just get the job done, okay? I friggen _promise_ it'll be worth the effort. But hurry or we'll miss the whole thing."

"Yeah, yeah—GHHRRG!—" Beast Boy hauled the case up one last rung and onto the fire escape's midway landing. The building's fire door for its balcony seating was locked tight and secure, and Beast Boy's eyes turned to the second stretch of ladder. "I just cleared the first hurdle. I'm high enough up now that I can transform without sweating your no-powers jive—no one can see me up here. Just pull the stick out of your ass and chill—I've got this."

"Phew…" Speedy sighed into his mic as he recognized the sense in this. Then he cringed as he realized he'd just gotten good advice from _Beast_ _Boy_ and reflected upon how poorly he must be doing for _that_ to be true. "Okay. I'm going to get act one all set up—you buzz me when you're in position. This… this is going to be _goooood_."

"Oh, it had _better_ be." Beast Boy cut the line, his eyes on the stretch of wall he still had to scale with a hundred and fifty pounds of camera equipment on his back. In a molding and rolling of flesh, he was a three hundred and fifty pound green orangutan, and the next fifteen feet of ladder might as well have been an escalator.

Raven and Kid Flash, Balcony Table 16

"It's almost time." Raven whispered, one pale hand holding the side of her head over her ear and transformed hair. Her eyes were fixed on the enormous restaurant's huge glass front wall where the comparatively diminutive glass doors were tucked away. Her 'date' couldn't help but notice her distraction.

"Uh, almost time for what?" Flash tried to follow her gaze, but she shook her head and caught his eye with a small smile that left him quite unconcerned with what she might have said. Feminine smiles are kind of magical that way.

"Oh, so… Flash," Raven made a half-effort at conversation as her eyes continually flicked over toward the door, "I'm still a little shocked at how fast we got here. I mean, I can teleport about a mile on my best day, but you covered _nine_ almost as quickly."

"Hey, what can I say?" Flash cocked both thumbs at his chest and grinned in what he hoped was a modest way, "fastest kid on Earth. What gets me is that I was carrying you at hyper-speed for something like a quarter-minute. I wear special clothing designed specifically to take that kind of punishment, so I wasn't worried about myself—hyper-speed collateral damage is a lesson I learned ages ago. That's what I was trying to warn you about when you, eh, _insisted_ that we get there as quickly as possible."

"Mmmhmm?" Raven wasn't doing a particularly good job of faking attentiveness, and Flash was acutely aware now that she was focused on the doors.

"What I'm trying to say is—what exactly is that dress of yours made out of? That stuff didn't budge a single _centimeter_—at _hyper_ _speed_! It didn't even _wrinkle_! How in the _hell_ are you keeping that little thing in place?"

"What?" Raven's mind processed that question several times before she reacted. She was stunned out of her creeping observations at the door as she blushed, completely unfamiliar with a guy—a cute guy at that—taking a vested interest in the way her clothing was clinging to her curves. "Oh… well…" there was a whisper in her ear that genuinely saved her bacon, and she wedged her embarrassment into coy amusement as she answered, "we ladies have to have our little secrets."

Flash chuckled in amazement at how unspeakably beautiful the woman across the table was, genuinely intrigued by the cheesy line delivered so sincerely. Maybe that's why the next shock was so… well… shocking. A casual glance over to the doorway Raven had been so circumspectly keeping watch upon revealed a striking couple striding arm in arm a step behind the head waiter. The lady of the pair made Flash's breath catch in his throat, the choking sound quite audible as he double and then triple-took in an effort to confirm what he was seeing. The bulge of his eyes behind the sunglasses jerked Raven's attention hastily in the same direction, and she seemed to almost growl as her eyes flashed with a hint of… something dangerous.

"_Eye Caraumba_! Whatta _babe_!" Flash apparently didn't realize he was speaking out loud. "Ho mama—would you check out the curves on that one? Is that dress even _legal_?"

"Uh—_Excuse me_?" All the danger Raven had been unconsciously projecting over the balcony railing at the unsuspecting couple below was suddenly squarely on Flash's narrow shoulders. He clapped his hands over his mouth in a belated effort to save himself from his lightning-quick tongue, but that didn't avert one Fahrenheit degree of the boiling lava behind Raven's eyes.

"Eheh—let me _rephrase_ that—"

Titan's Tower Computer Room

The sound of Speedy's laughter was underscored by the electric rasp masking BB's as it came in over the radio. Their concentrated snickering combined into a symphony of inconsiderate humor that, thankfully, the targets would ever know was aimed at them.

_Chateau_ _Blanc_ Rooftop

"Didn't I tell you?" Speedy shouted over the radio as he reviewed the reaction stills cameras five and six had captured of Raven and Flash post-contact. "Didn't I _TELL_ you?"

"Oh man—remind me never to doubt you again bro—you called this one cold!" Beast Boy slowly calmed down as he watched the almost mystical way Flash assuaged Raven's uncommon rigor of fury. He was somewhat in awe as Raven slowly wound down to 'merely annoyed,' knowing that he himself wouldn't have gotten out of the situation without at least a minor grilling or a huffy cold shoulder.

There was a mechanical whirring sound as the two cameras Beast Boy had planted over the skylights turned on their gimbals and retrained on another part of the space below. He switched between his own feed of the camera and peeking down the sky light himself. He didn't want to miss this for the world. Right. Any minute now.

Titan's Tower Computer Room

Speedy's eyes never budged from their fixation on the monitors as he let his ear in on each and two emotion-strained conversations at once. Tipping off both women with choice advice was a delicate balancing act, and more than once he found himself on the wrong channel when he mentioned one sage comment or another. It wasn't too bad—both ladies were more than high-strung enough to overlook little inconsistencies in his coaching.

"Alright now Starry-eyed, you've got him hooked!" Speedy rasped as he watched the two stare goo-goo eyes at each other across the table. "So here's what I want you to do. Kick off your right pump and find his leg under the table…"

"Sure thing lover boy," an artificially husky, definitely male voice answered, then proceeded to burst into uncontrollable snickering. "Gee Romeo—I didn't know you cared!" The laughter came hard and fast after that, and Speedy switched from channel four to channel two as he faced down the blush. The only beneficial portion of the whole episode was that it pushed Speedy to realize that the time was actually ripe for the big sting. Here went everything.

Robin, Entry-Level Table 9

Robin had an incredibly exquisite meal in front of him, but his eyes were unconditionally focused on the optical delicacy cased across the table. For about an hour now—well, he didn't really have any concept of how much time had passed, but his food was here, and that spoke of quite a bit of water under the bridge in a joint like this. Anyway, for about an hour now (or whatever), they'd been chatting pleasantly about absolutely nothing, and he'd honestly never had such a fantastic time in his entire life. He was floating on a high of epinephrine and endorphins that kept his pulse up and his rear on the edge in a way quite unlike a life-and-death battle with a nut-job villain ever had. It was absolutely refreshing, and he found himself fascinated by both the sensation and the glowing, giggling, charming source of it as well.

As of this instant, Robin only had eyes for—

There was a resounding thump that shook the whole building, and Robin was up out of his chair halfway before he even realized what he was doing. All around the echoing of clinking glassware and shivering ceramics-laden tables mixed with sounds of guarded confusion from a hundred unpleasantly interrupted conversations. There was complete silence for a moment, and then everything went back to exactly how it had been. A slightly worried look from Starfire and even Robin sat back down, though his eyes still darted around the enormous restaurant looking for anything unusual. His searching passed over something unusual several times before it finally registered, but when it did…

Titan's Tower Computer Room

"Alright! Blackfeather, this is your cue! Go, go, go!"

Speedy switched channels.

"Starry-eyed, look out! What's up with the target?"

_Chateau Blanc_ --Starfire

Robin looked up, and his eyes stayed their. Starfire heard the sound in her ear and saw the look on his face, and she panicked.

"Robin? Robin, what's wrong? What has disturbed you?" Starfire followed him out of his chair but received no response. He was completely focused on something, and was slowly walking further away from her. "Cyrano—what is this? What should I do?" Starfire struggled to keep her voice down as she watched Robin go from infatuated with her to staggering bug-eyed away from the table.

"I'm not sure—find out what he's looking at. Although I have a slight suspici—"

"Oh my Goddess X'hal!" Speedy's end of the line squealed as she shouted into a mic meant to pick up unvoiced larynx vibrations. On the other hand, he was quite positively aware that she'd made contact as much as Robin had.

"Aw great…" Speedy feigned passionate displeasure with ease, "what the hell is she doing there? Nevermind—look at the target! That's not good, Star, you have to get his attention back!"

Starfire nodded and snatched up Robin's arm by the elbow and wrist, giving it a squeeze that vented more than a little bit of her shock and sudden, gripping paranoia at spotting her rival where she definitely shouldn't be. She was certain she was cutting off the blood flow, and she did manage to stop his progress, though his feet continued to drag across the hardwood floor as though she weren't even there. She whispered various requests for cooperation and attention as she became acutely aware that she was the center of attention for more than a few tables.

Raven and Kid Flash

"So—I don't know if you've noticed this or not," Flash leaned forward as his voice lowered to something conspiratory, "But you've got to be the focus of attention for at least sixty percent of the people in here with testicles."

"What was that?" Raven was completely distracted by watching Robin stare stupidly at her over the balcony rail their table was right next to. The look on his face was priceless beyond any estimate, the combined shock and awe infinitely more than worth any drop of frustration or embarrassment this night had delivered thus far.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact," Now Flash's voice was little more than a whisper, "I'm pretty sure those two young women back at the table in the corner have been checking you out since we sat down."

"Oh? That's nice…" Raven let the mindless pleasantry slip out between her irrepressible smile before the content caught up with her. Her entire expression seized in shock and disgust as her gaze craned slowly and inexorably to the innocent smirk decorating Flash's good looks.

So it was, at the moment of truth, absolutely no one was paying as much attention as they should have been.

Rooftop

Beast Boy was completely absorbed in uncontrolled, body-shaking fits of sniggering as he looked down at the antics ongoing in the live theatre below. It was himself in the form of an elephant that had rocked the building to its very foundation and shaken Robin's gaze upward, and he tittered until his ribs ached when he finally saw the look on the pretty-boy's face.

Thus, the shadowed figure sneaking up behind him went unnoticed well beyond the point where he would have had a chance to react. Indeed, the first he knew of its presence was the pistol but contacting the base of his spine that also happened to be the sharply punctuated end to his laughter. He was rolled callously out of the way as an enormous gas tank with ominous warning labels stenciled over every inch of its surface was dragged into his place. Without hesitation, a blue-gloved hand set the feed to pump the contents of the tank into the restaurant.

Starfire

"Code Red, Star!" Speedy snapped into the line as he prepared to set his master plan into its final phase. "F.U.F. F.U.F!"

Starfire struggled to remember her list of code words, then blinked in mixed surprise and avenging delight as she recalled the correct response. Releasing Robin's arm, she cocked back her hand in a high arch and brought it whistling in on an aggressive path. The 'WHAP' sound that split the room brought a tear to many a man's eye as Starfire delivered Five Upside the Face in a classic closed-fingered backhand to her negligent date's lower jaw. Robin's head snapped around as his whole body followed in a wobbling pirouette, and he slumped forward into a disoriented sprawl all over an irate Starfire.

"Ow!" Robin mumbled rather shortly as he found his aching jaw nestled in the invitingly warm, bare crook of Starfire's neck. His stinging, smarting skin was nuzzled by a wreath of cool red braids, and his eyes wandered lazily upward until they caught sight of Raven again. Somewhat in possession of his wits this time, he had a somewhat more appropriate reaction. "Holy Crap! Is that… Raven?"

"Robin! What is the meaning of this behavior?" Starfire shoved him back, forcing him to regain his footing or land unceremoniously on his ass. The acrobat managed, barely, but almost wished he hadn't when he noticed the expression of deeply injured fury twisting his date's face. "I was under the impression that this entire endeavor was meant to exclude such distractions! Why—why are you looking at her!"

"Listen Star—I can explain—she just caught me off guard is all! I swear I—LOOK!"

Raven

"Oh Azar! I can't believe she actually _hit_ _him_!" Raven murmured to herself as she struggled to suppress a chortle of satisfaction. Across the table, Flash cocked an eyebrow at her behavior and the antics down below just before his face screwed up in confusion.

"Raven… hey… do you smell that?" he asked, failing to even almost distract her from the scene developing over the balcony. He sniffed deeply, then his eyes flew wide in panic as he finally placed the scent. "Raven!" he burst up to his feet, "We have to bleh bleah mmbleh." Flash's warning trailed off as he lost fine motor function, then slumped to the floor in an unconscious heap.

This finally caught Raven's eye, and she leapt from her own chair in shock, none of which went unnoticed below. Her mind racing, Raven tried to recall everything she knew about speedsters like Kid Flash, wringing her memory for any wrinkle that might detail what had just happened. They move faster than us, they think a little faster than us, and they metabolize _much_ faster than—It hit her like a right cross, and she covered her mouth and nose to hold her breath as she twisted over to face her allies on the floor below. She signaled frantically with one arm, but the signal turned into a sort of drugged swaying as she lost control and fell over with a loud thump.

Starfire

Starfire pulled back to hit Robin again when she saw the way he was staring over her shoulder at Raven, but the nimble brawler ducked under her arm and was on his way to the huge sweeping stairway up to the balcony floor before she could even decide where to thwack him next. She turned on her heel and launched herself into the air before she could consider the consequences, chasing him up to the second floor seating a half-second behind, her fists glowing green with furious energy. By the time she was there, he was already sliding into a kneel next to the fully-bedecked, and completely decked-out Raven. She gasped in shock, her fury sputtering out in a chilly wash of fear for her friend, and never even noticed the odor of the knockout nerve agent that was this moment dropping every diner on the second floor. The world went black as she saw Robin clutching at his face—already too late.

Titan's Tower Computer Room

"Starry-Eyed? Come in! Hello?" Speedy got no answer, just unintelligible skewed and shrouded camera feeds and static. He glanced over to check his wide angle camera that Beast Boy had set up, only to notice that it was showing a freeze frame and had been for nearly three minutes, if the feed clock was to be believed. Panic reached up and gripped Speedy's heart as he switched to the green man's channel. His whole body began to shake as he saw every facet of his plans go horribly, terrifyingly wrong.

"Animal Passion? Hey, can you here me? This is no time to be joking around damn it! Beast Boy?" Speedy broke radio discipline in his mounting desperation. Suddenly, when he thought he could get no more frightened, the camera feeds began to simply cut out to black one by one. In a frenzy, he switched to cover all channels.

"Robin! Beast Boy! Raven! Starfire!" he snapped in quick succession, "Can anybody hear me?" He paused as he listened to static, just as Robin's camera feed died, leaving every monitor blank. "Anybody?"

Future

I'm going to finish it, yeah. No other promises are forthcoming, but I can guarantee that it will arrive sooner if I know that people are actually reading this and actually want to hear the end. My vague plans include a completely over-the-top and unrealistic drama/angst blitz in the vein of this whole over blow production thus far. Who'll win out when the triangle falls over and becomes a line? Meh, maybe I'll flip a coin or something.


	10. LoveLove Battle GO!

It's so funny that even I laugh at it, and I never laugh at my own jokes. **Read it already.**

Chapter 10: Love-Love Battle GO!

A Deep, Dank Place

Robin woke fitfully, his stomach knotting and cramping as he rolled around in mindless agony. He was aware immediately that he'd been dosed with something awful besides just the paralytic nerve agent, and the cocktail of vile toxins was enough to wrack his intestines with burning pain. A hacking series of heaves later, Robin vacated his guts and the seething pain therein, opening his eyes at last. There was no difference in the view, and he edged away from the stinking puddle of stomach contents as he lay back on a surprisingly smooth, cold floor and stretched out in the pitch blackness.

"Alright Robin, you've regained consciousness in a completely pitch black room," he said to himself as he noticed the draft, "_And_ you're naked. What do you do now?" The answer was obvious: take stock of what you _do_ have and what you _do_ know.

As soon as he could muster the coordination, Robin clambered to his feet and wandered blindly to the nearest wall. With one hand against it, he reached up and felt along his face, finding, to his simultaneous relief and frustration, that the useful little holograph sunglasses had expelled his emergency mask when they'd been removed. His identity was now protected by a mask-shaped layer of black super-polymer foam that wouldn't be coming off until the correct industrial solvent was applied. It was a pain, but he was safe on that count.

Next he felt along the wall until he had the measure of his prison. The room was a perfect circle about fifteen feet in diameter. The walls were made of something cold and unbelievably smooth and slippery. Extending his hands as far up as they would reach found no ceiling, and when he shouted experimentally, the room echoed up above him for what could have been ten feet or a hundred. The strange acoustics and pitch black made it impossible to estimate.

Time to recount what he knew. He was in a pit with walls he couldn't climb—and there was so little light that his mind was producing multicolored splotches and shapes as though he had his eyes pressed shut. Oh, and the whole space smelled strongly of his own vomit—that's always a plus. Let's not forget, all he was wearing was his mask and a frown. Unless he was mistaken, this is what Batman liked to call a 'Pray you don't get to this point' situation.

"God Damnit."

A Not-Dissimilar Locale

Raven woke with a sudden jolt, sitting straight up with a gasp. A wild-eyed search through her most recent memory uncovered nothing for long, panic-inducing minutes. The space around her was black as nightmares, the darkness crowding in around her like a choking fog as she struggled to recover some sense of where she was and what had happened. Finally, a piercing pain in her skull arrived along with blurred recollection of an audacious plot and its inauspicious end. With that memory, her breathing settled, and the dark seemed to recede, becoming a cloying, all-pervasive nothing instead of a weight pressing down on her. She realized that this was yet another uncouth awakening in a long recent series, and her fear and confusion was tempered by flat disgust.

With a sigh, she tried to gain her feet, only to stumble back onto her rear as she became acquainted with the further peculiarities of her situation. Something was tying her ankles together about a half foot apart, not to mention the fact that her pumps were long gone. When she checked herself from head to toe, she concluded that while she still had her dress (which, indeed, hadn't budged a centimeter out of place) her hair had gone flat and she had strange manacles on her wrists and another loose one around her neck. When she discovered the last one, she also discovered that she couldn't budge the large hoop in the slightest, despite the fact that there was no apparent reason for it to grip her. With that revelation came a distinct sinking feeling. And then she heard it.

Raven froze, tensing like a whipcord the instant she realized she wasn't alone in the darkness. Motionless, she strained her ears, trying to swallow even her own pulse lest she miss the slightest motion of air to give away her unseen roommate. There the sound issued again, and Raven gasped quietly as recognized it for what it was.

"Star?"

The tiny sound choked off, the issuer stifling herself in pouring terror, reflexively withdrawing until there was no hint of her presence left. It was enough to both confirm Raven's suspicion and flood her with a host of new fears.

"Star, are you there? Are you alright?" Raven flopped over and started to worm and crawl across a cold, smooth metal floor in the direction the noise had come from. In instant reaction, a similar sound of motion joined hers, wordless crawling retreat directly away from her approach. It became a race of a sort, two bodies squirming, bound in the darkness, right up until Raven's timid companion hit the wall. The slight thump was followed by an unmistakable shriek, and the next moment, Raven was close enough to touch Starfire and could feel the heat from her body. "Starfire, talk to me! What's wrong?"

"NO!" the shriek was panicked, containing no shred of coherence. "Get away! Not again! I won't let it happen again!"

With that cryptic shout of unmitigated terror, Starfire quickly devolved into Tameranean and started to belt out phrases that sounded like prayers, or maybe curses… maybe even a mix of both for all Raven knew. Reaching out with her powers to try and calm her down directly, Raven discovered something else she hadn't known.

"AAAGG!" her body was wracked with a sudden jarring pain, her eyes pierced by light as the shackles on her wrists, ankles, and the hoop around her neck all erupted into a blinding white iridescence. The nerve-searing pain died out the second she stopped trying to access her power, but the glow persisted even as she slumped onto the floor next to the shaking woman babbling quietly in her alien tongue. Raven cursed silently and repeatedly as she listened to Starfire's completely unhinged mumbling and felt the lingering ache in every inch of her skin. It was pretty clear now that these were no ordinary shackles—the lingering glow was an obnoxious little reminder of that. But at least, now, she had something to see by.

"Oh… Star… no…" Raven forgot her own pain as she saw the state her friend was in first hand. While she herself had survived the transitioning unconsciousness with little more than a bad case of bed-head and less her nicest pair of heels, Starfire had obviously had a much different experience.

Starfire was… well, 'a mess' doesn't really cut it, but it'll have to do here. About one half of her intricate braiding had come undone and sat in partially-unraveled bristly mess while the rest tangled and knotted in a massive disaster of red hair. That is to say, what of her hair that was visible was messy—most of her head was locked up in a cold metal mask that encased her head like helmet with only a small air slit over her mouth. Her dress was torn and completely bedraggled, as though from some great struggle, and the floor around them sparkled with sequins lost in her thrashing. She was bound up in a single high-tech manacle of heavy metal that wrapped and bound both arms all the way up to her elbows.

While Raven took in that horrific sight, Starfire continued to mumble curses and prayers in her native tongue. Raven didn't find her own voice again until the light from her bonds had died away, leaving nothing to break the darkness but the terrible after-images provided by her own overpowered imagination. Then, she recognized something of what was going on, a whisper in her memory pointing directly to the last time she'd seen bonds like Star's.

"Starfire! Can you hear me? Please Star, you've got to calm down!" There was no indication that the quivering mess of alien next to her had even noticed her, and Raven grew desperate. "STARFIRE!" Raven shrieked out as loud as she could, the noise echoing upward ominously. The jarring reverberation finally brought a still silence from Starfire, who curled up into as close to a fetal position as possible and cowered against the wall.

"Starfire, it's me." Raven reached out and touched a gentle hand against one of Starfire's torn stockings, only for the girl to jerk away. "Don't you recognize my voice?" Raven let her be as she considered the question, until she finally uncurled slightly and sat up away from the wall.

"R-Raven?"

"Yes!"

Suddenly, Starfire made an exhausted sighing noise, twisted where she sat, and slumped forward, knocking Raven off balance and sending them both to the cold floor. Laid out next to one another, partially tangled and completely bound up, Raven could _hear_ Starfire's tears hitting the inside of the thick metal mask. Her next words were whispered with such a mish-mash of distress and relief that they were almost impossible to understand.

"Oh Raven… it was terrible…" She began, interspersing her story with chokes and gasps, "I awoke in this darkness, and I could feel the bonds on me again—_again_!"

This cryptic remark was apparently supposed to convey massive volumes of horror. Then she recognized the manacle for sure, and she realized just how deep that horror must be.

"Star, are those the same bonds you had the day we met…?"

"Gordanian slave bonds." The flat way she said the words hurt Raven on the inside. "When I awoke… I thought… for a moment I was sure I was back on their research warship waiting in the experiment holding cells. I… I have been having… I think the term is 'flashbacks.' It is likely due to the drugs."

"Drugs?" Raven tried to coax more information out of her. Besides curiosity of a period of her life Starfire had never deigned to relate in any detail, she really seemed much calmer to be speaking of it now.

"The manacle," there was the sound of the unwieldy thing being brandished in the pitch darkness, "automatically dispenses a neurologically active agent with accompanying semi-telepathic suggestion emissions from an embedded transmitter. The combination has a great many effects desirable to those wanting to keep a race of mighty warriors as slave labor or test subjects. Among other functions, it is a truth serum and a power-disabling agent that can be adjusted to most galactic species."

"Really? The last time I saw you wearing one of those… well… you weren't exactly docile." Starfire made a sound that might have been amused, but was probably just barely-suppressed terror.

"A saboteur replaced the drugs with a harmless substitute before that Gordanian warship put out to space. When I awoke in my cell I was not under their influence… and I had a very great deal of anger and indignation built up. Oh!" Starfire changed tracks suddenly and without pause, "Even now the drug has not taken full effect…" Starfire's voice began to break with a new rising tide of panic, "It… it courses through me…"

There was a sudden, ear-splitting BAM as Starfire hurled the enormous metal object into the floor opposite Raven, the entire room reverberating like a bell.

"RELEASE MEEEE!" Starfire screamed before repeating the motion in a wild, mindless thrashing. BAM! BAM! BAM! The room was shivering so hard Raven's whole body was wracked by jitters in sympathy. GONG! A new sound joined the whacking as Star shifted tactics, slamming her blindfold-mask into the floor just inches from Raven's face. Raven rolled quickly away as she continued to writhe and shriek. BAM! GONG! BAM! GONG! She alternated the striking motions as she whipped around on her side of the unbearably dark prison.

WHACK! There was a slightly wet sound from the vicinity of Starfire's head, and the thrashing came to a sudden, frightening, halt. Raven scurried across the floor even as the room slowly, slowly stopped vibrating, twisting her cuffed hands through a tangle of hair and limp gown until she could feel for her friend's pulse. When she felt a slow, steady beat under her finger, she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. An ear pressed against the mask/helmet's mouth slit told her Star was still breathing, and she rolled off of her friend in relief. She was out for the time being, but it seemed like she was going to pull through. As for this inky black cell they shared, well, that was the next matter for consideration.

While she lay on her back, her hands uncomfortably linked in front of her, Raven considered what she knew. From the sounds made when Starfire vented her uncontrollable panic, it seemed as though they were in some kind of metal cylinder. The air above them was fresh and seemed to be circulating, so that meant they weren't liable to suffocate. That cleared them for three minutes. If whoever was jailing them deigned to give them water, they'd outlive three days, and with food they'd outlive three months. Heh, the rule of threes. Without her powers and, indeed, without even being able to walk or stand with her ankles bound, she wasn't going to be organizing an escape of any kind. That meant it all came down to a waiting game.

"At least it can't get any worse." Raven said out loud, experimentally, and then regretted it when she noticed the disturbing way the sound echoed in the dark. That then got her to thinking about what she'd just said, and she realized with a sick, sinking feeling that she kind of had to go to the bathroom. That could get… messy.

Starfire started to shiver audibly next to her, and she realized that she herself was also freezing on the metal floor. Without the slightest reluctance, Raven rolled over and did her utmost to wrap herself around Starfire's unconscious shape. That didn't amount to much with them both bound up as they were, but as she snuggled against Star's back, the other girl's shivering slowed and she delighted in the heat coming off her at the same time. A waiting game it was.

Titans Tower—Kidnapping Plus Three Hours

"What do you mean there's no sign of them!" Speedy shouted into his communicator as he buzzed down one of Jump City's emptier thoroughfares on Robin's motorcycle.

"What, did I _stutter_?" Cyborg snapped back with masses of open irritation, "there are no leads! There are no witnesses! There aren't even any _clues_! PERIOD! Whoever snatched our boys was a real pro about it. If we want to find them, we're going to need a friggin' _psychic_ or something, because the old fashioned way just isn't gonna work this time."

"AHG!" Speedy shouted, breaking suddenly and pulling over. He leapt from the bike and stamped onto the pavement, frustration barely contained and completely insufficient to blank out the guilt. In an act of utter futility, he ripped off his yellow helmet and flung it at a brick wall, grinding his teeth as it clattered and rolled away. When he had himself in control, he pulled his communicator up again.

"Alright. Alright." He paused, his mind blank during the battle between panic and fear for his friends. "ALRIGHT! Okay. I'll call the local FBI office and see if they can recommend any decent psychics. If there isn't anyone on call, I can pull in a favor from… from _someone_. All sorts of people owe Robin and the Titans, it shouldn't be too hard. I just hope it doesn't get too bad… Birds'll never forgive me if I have to call Big 'B' over this."

"I hear ya, and I'm as worried as you are, but pacing around there isn't finding our friends. I'm still trying to get something coherent out of K.F.—he's already up but those drugs don't want to leave his system. B.B.'s flat out useless too—'I didn't see anything—oh my aching head'" the mocking was more out of his own fear and frustration than anything else. It was clearly underwritten by the big man's concern for his little buddy too. "Which reminds me, you got any clue why whoever snatched our ladies and gentleman didn't grab Quick-Spaz and Zoo-Spaz?"

"Nah… I was thinking about that too." Speedy was glad to be reminded of the only thing resembling a lead they had so far. "If it was anyone in the general Supervillian Set, I don't see why they'd leave two 'capes' behind. Of course, Flash-o was in full disguise, but that didn't stop him from grabbing _Birds_. I mean, this guy is a real pro! Every tracking device we had on those three is completely dead!"

"Yeah, I know. Hmm, maybe somebody who has a grudge just against those three? Is there anybody who has it out for just them?"

"God I hope so. It would make this so _much_ easier."

"It's a place to start anyway. You make those calls, I'm going to hop in the T-car and access the Tower's database. Wish me luck."

"I'm wishing _Robin_ luck. Then again, why am I even worrying?" The question was clearly rhetorical, and Cyborg didn't respond. "That little dick," Speedy went on as he wracked his brain for the comm. numbers he'd need, "is probably already halfway to breaking out of captivity as we speak!"

Robin's Pit-Cell

After pacing his tiny space's full circumference for the one-hundred-and-thirty-ninth time, Robin once again walked off the full diameter. With that distance firmly cemented in his inner-eye, he turned around, pressed his back against the near wall, and dashed as quickly as he could for the other side. He leapt upward right on cue and rejoiced as his foot contacted the wall at exactly the right angle. He pressed his weight down to run up the side of the wall for a snatch at the lip of the pit, then felt his stomach leap up into his chest as his foot, rather than carrying him up the wall in a blitz of momentum and muscle, slipped downward and crammed painfully into the corner where the wall met the floor. The rest of his body followed, after a fashion, and the room rang like a bell as he impacted sharply with the bottom.

"EEHHOUCH!" Robin let out the long, slow moan after a pause. "So the walls really _are_ frictionless," Robin admitted to himself aloud as he silently smarted for the pain to his toes, rump, and skull. "Note to self—let's _not_ try that again."

His private embarrassment was interrupted by an ominous, all-pervading laughter that threw him into instant hyper-alert. He was up on his heels and ready to fight in a flipping flash, eyes strained upward into the dark for any hint of movement.

"Well, well Robin, it seems you've managed to stay busy while left to your own devices." The voice was deep and ominous, vaguely reminiscent of about a dozen different criminals and madmen he'd taken on in the last five years. Frankly, the fact that his captor was a male didn't do much to narrow down the list.

"Who's there?" Well… in his experience, it never hurt to ask, villain egos being what they are. "Who the hell are you wand what do you want with me?"

"What? You mean you don't remember me?" The voice was heavy with mock indignation. "I mean it's only been what? A week? Surely I made a _little_ more of an impression than that."

"Ravager!" it clicked like that, though Robin couldn't help being a little surprised to have been taken under by a guy who'd been such a pushover the first time around.

"Why Robin, I bet you snap out _all_ the killers' names with that exaggerated tone of danger and drama!" The Ravager's sarcastic drawl grated on the Boy Wonder, more because he had no clue of where it was coming from more specifically than 'up.' The cell was still as absolutely dark as it had ever been.

"Okay Ravager, you've got me, so humor me." Robin relaxed slightly and stretched out his neck from the strain of craning it upward. "Why'd ya strip me down? Eh, you don't have one of those weird superhero fetishes—"

"Of course not!" The Ravager cut him off before he could take that line of thought any further. "After frisking you for the third time, I realized I would never find every gadget you hid in that suit. When I found the lockpick in you boxers I decided the Full Monty was the only way to be comprehensive. Plus, it's rather demeaning yes? It would hardly do for the prelude to my revenge to be a tolerable experience."

"Revenge? Is that what this is all about?" Robin sounded genuinely shocked. It was an act of course—he'd had opponents pursue revenge for less, what with the egos and all. "So I slapped you around a little and gave you a molten-metal shakedown, so what? If that's the worst thing that happens to you after you underestimate someone as badly as you did me, you've gotten off easy. Trust me."

"You little PRICK!" Ravager sounded blatantly furious for the first time. "You really don't have the slightest idea do you? You didn't just humiliate me—you've _killed_ me! The Society of Assassins has a very specific policy about members that give up their contract holders. My death warrant was signed and notarized before the police arrived at the factory to cut me down!"

"What?" This time Robin actually was a little shocked. He'd honestly never given Ravager's fate a first thought, much less a second one, and this particular explanation for this follow-up escapade struck him as even more thin than most. "Okay wait!" Robin actually was ticked of in an extraordinary manner as he thought this through. "How exactly is _my_ fault that _you_ can't stand up to a little junior-grade 'high-pressure interrogation.' For cripes sake—you didn't _have_ to squeal! I wouldn't have actually let you burn up after I set your mask on fire you fucking pansy—I'm a _public_-_sanctioned_ crime fighter! If they were going to _kill_ you for singing you should have kept your trap shut!"

"Oh don't you start with me you little _zit-factory_!" Ravager's moderately deranged tone told Robin he'd struck exactly the right nerve. "I don't have to take lip from an ass-wipe without a single notch in his obnoxiously accessorized belt! Especially not when I have him and his two little girlfriends locked up in industrial cooking vats!" Robin worked to keep the smile off his face as he finally wheedled some information out of his captor. Then the smile curdled as he realized that Starfire and Raven were in the same condition he was. Perhaps _exactly_ the same condition.

"What have you done to them?" leapt from Robin's lips despite the deeply-established knowledge that interrupting your enemy's informative rant was a no-no. "I swear if you've laid _one_ _finger_ on them I'll—"

"You'll what?" Ravager cut off his emotionally-charged threats before he could further embarrass himself, clearly because he couldn't hold off on actively rubbing in his victory to this point. "What could you possibly do? Fly up out of that dark metal pit and take it out of my hide? I don't think so Skippy—you're not going anywhere." Robin turned his eyes away from the perfect darkness above and throttled his fury while staring at the perfect darkness below. "By the by, this isn't about whose fault my impending demise is. No—rather, this is all about whose life I'm going to grind into paste before clipping tragically short as a last huzza in my career. You should feel honored—I blew my entire bankroll and called in every last favor in my book to set up the perfect little torture experience in these, my last hours of life. Honestly, that's why I neither assassinated you while you were staring goo-goo eyed at that fine red-headed piece of ass nor just left you in this tank to die in a pool of your own festering excrement. I want it to be slow, but I want to see you broken and dead before my number comes up."

Robin took all of that in as he laced together new and creative expletives at his own incompetence. Suddenly, his half-serious musings about romance in the Titan's Game Room—was it only one week ago?—seemed to be distinctively the biggest foul-up he'd ever perpetrated on himself and especially on those women. Then his mind snapped back to the task of escape and survival.

"Y'know, that's a pretty shitty attitude you have there? If you're such a big, bad assassin, why don't you fight the system? Run. Hide. Go kill them first. You're really not impressing me with this whole 'last moments of my life' routine."

"HA!" Ravager's back of contempt echoed more than usual. "I don't think you understand who I have to deal with. The Society of Assassins knew who they were dealing with, and they hired only the very best to 'make an example' out of me. Running or hiding would be futile. To kill preemptively would mean it was possible to locate them. Which it isn't. Even for me—the guy who tracked you down during your most secret liaison. Do you begin to see the picture?"

"I begin to see what a pussy you really are." Robin decided twisting his captor's crank was probably the fastest way to elicit a change in his situation either way. "Maybe if you let me out of here… _and_ give me some pants… I could help you find a nice safe protection program's skirts to hide under. You're already dead and they can't kill you twice. I'm sure you know some other names you could sing to the FBI—"

"Oh I'm sure you'd like that." Ravager's tone left no question as to his answer, and Robin slumped slightly in the darkness. "But enough idle chit-chat. Did you know I ran your prints?"

"Is that so?" Robin perked up slightly at this, though not at all in fear. He was actually smirking slightly.

"And your DNA. It was all I had after that clever little automatic mask jumped out of your disguise. Would you happen to know the name that came back for both?"

"Heh, let me guess…" Robin's smile stretched wide. "Maybe Burt Ward? Loren Lester? Chris O'Donnell? No, seriously, tell me. I always get a kick out of this part."

"Hmph." Ravager sounded coolly furious about his amusement. "Just some small-bit chuckle-head: Scott Menville. I have to admit though, that's rather an entertaining trick. Anyway, I suppose I'll have to carry on without discovering just who you are. A small loss, considering what I still have in store. Anyway, you just sit tight down there while I supervise the outside contractors I hired to perfect this little drama. They sure weren't cheap, but what I have in mind requires quite the specialist's touch. And it's not like I can take my bankroll with me."

"What are you planning?"

"Now Robin, telling you would ruin the surprise. Heh heh heh hahahahahah!" The laughter faded slowly, as though Ravager was walking away. Robin fumed, his good humor long dissolved. That his prints had been run meant ol' Bats now knew he'd been pinched, but that was hardly encouraging if he and the ladies were at Ravager's mercy much longer.

Speedy, Kidnapping plus Seven Hours

"Oh Lilith, THANK YOU!" Speedy shouted into his comm., the relief on his face bordering on outright tears.

"Yeah, yeah Speedy, you just remember," the young copper-blond psychic on the other line, better known as Omen, responded with distaste, "you're going to owe me the date of a lifetime for this. I'll get to divining your lost bird's location, you just be ready to pick up the tab on a seriously glamorous night out."

Omen cut the line and Speedy was left leaning against Robin's motorcycle in the middle of a dawn-drenched street. Shadows of various city buildings left the bare twilight quite broken, but the sun's emergence did little other than impress Speedy with a new sense of urgency. Every hour lost increased the chance he'd never see his friends again. That depressing thought chilled him as the comm. beeped again and he flipped it open.

"Damn Lil, that was fast!" he snapped into his communicator without looking. "Or are you just calling back to secure a night of wild se—"

"Hello Speedy." The deep voice at the other end of the line choked Speedy off to a sudden, spine-freezing stop. His eyes gradually ratcheted themselves to the comm. screen, where the back of an enormous throne-like chair was silhouetted by numerous bright computer monitors. "Is there any chance you could connect me to Robin?"

Speedy felt his bladder tighten as it threatened to vent in protest of the massive surge of bone-chilling adrenaline that had just dumped into his system all at once. His mouth was dry and he was acutely aware that he'd broken out in a cold sweat.

"Heh, eheh, Batman! _Sir_!" Speedy was racing between a state of mind that was terror-blank and another that was terror-flooded with possible lies. In the face of Big 'B' though, all lies paled to the useless and ephemeral things they were. "There… there'd be a slight problem with connecting you to Robin. You see, what with developments in the last week and crisis in the past ten hours…"

"He's been picked up." Batman made it a statement, not a question. There really wasn't much Speedy could say.

"Eh. Yes sir."

"Method?"

Now, Speedy didn't want to cast his pal in a bad light, but he didn't want to say anything to Batman that could possibly be construed as a non-truth. The old nut could smell lies, even from the other side of the country over a comm. line.

"Well, it was a blanket nerve-gas attack on a public place. No warning and minimal chance to don NBC gear, what with him being out of costume at the time."

"Hmm? Well, I'm sure there's a story there, but the boy has made it quite clear that I'm not to meddle in his affairs ever again. Still, my data net caught someone running his prints, and I'm responsible for broad-range data control and identity protection for all Justice League members and affiliates. I don't think he can complain if I feed you the tracking data I picked up on the query."

Like that, Speedy's screen was filled with a recording of a standard data trace that narrowed to a mostly-abandoned industrial area near the docks before the signal had terminated. It wasn't perfect, but it limited the search area vastly.

"Err… thanks." Speedy was completely at a loss for what to say. After all, this was _The_ Batman.

"Good hunting."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, and Speedy?"

"Yes sir?"

"Our parting may not have been on the best of terms, but the boy is still one of my own. It would be… _unfortunate_ to loose him at this point. Understood?"

Speedy gulped once, hard. "Yes sir!"

"Good." The line cut, the bat logo lingering for a moment before his screen went completely blank. Speedy held his breath for a moment, and then sighed in relief. Then Speedy recalled the time-sensitive nature of the current crisis, and he nearly dropped his communicator in his haste to get Omen back on the line.

He told her the news, then he told everyone else on the search teams, and then he consulted his tactical display of the city. His screen showed blips representing the Titans and himself converging from all directions on a ten-square block section of the city's seedier side. This was a break, but it had been hours now, and it only took seconds to slit an unconscious victim's throat and leave him or her for dead face-down in a gutter.

"Good Speedy, real nice." Speedy said to himself as he hopped back on his borrowed ride. "Our job is to save 'em, not kill them in our own mind. Now hurry up." He gunned the bike, the morning shadows flickering over him as he sped away.

Ravager's Converted Factory

"And you're sure this thing will get the job done?" Ravager asked his associate in the white lab coat as they both watched a team put finishing touches on an extremely large apparatus. The thing had many pieces and parts, but the business end consisted of a series of metal rings set up around the pot-cell he'd trapped the female heroes within. The pure poindexter he'd addressed nodded with an oblivious smile.

"Oh yes! The Oscillation Overpowering Consciousness device is absolutely guaranteed to take control of normal behavior patterns and throw the subjects exposed to it into an extreme variation of any emotion or state of mind you could possibly desire. It's been tested to extreme circumstances, and has show impressive results in all test subjects, even non-human and non-sapient organisms." The pride he felt at all of this was evident, and it made Ravager grin in self-satisfaction at the con he was pulling off.

"Good, good. And when will it be completed?"

"Why, it will be fully operational as soon as the final tests on the power feeds have finished up. And uh, might I ask what the hurry is for?"

"I'm paying you to not ask questions. Suffice to say that my own research requires that your device be set up post-haste. Alright?"

The poindexter seemed leery, and Ravager could hardly blame him. His half-assed story about far-fetched food research had barely been enough to get these guys out here, much less convince an actual scientist in person. However, money talked much more convincingly, and questions from the completely legit lab he'd contacted for this specialist equipment had evaporated in a deluge of green. And as soon as he had what he wanted, this crowd would be out of here. '_Permanently_,' if necessary, though he was hoping to avoid that. 'Disappearing' people has a tendency to draw unwanted attention, after all.

"Ah, if you don't mind me commenting, you don't look much like a scientist." Ravager leveled an unpleasant masked stare at the meticulous little man.

"I mind. Aren't you done yet?" That comment had nails in it, and the scientist turned away in a sweat and started riding his assistants. Anything to get him away from this muscle-bound, murder-eyed masked man.

The Ladies' Pit Cell

"… and so it took me an hour to do all the braids, even with the device S—I procured for the task." Starfire's voice was tired and distant, but no longer muffled. As it turned out when Raven rushed to help her up, her last gasp of super-strength had cracked her mask wide open… at the regrettable expense of a wide gash along her forehead and temple.

"I can certainly relate. You wouldn't believe what it was like giving myself a perm, even just this light one. If it weren't for my powers I'd never have managed it." Raven was sitting behind Starfire as they both rested in the darkness. She was alternatively working the tangles out of her friend's long hair and using the soft inner lining of a shred of Starfire's gown to clean away blood that had begun to coagulate here and there. In the pitch black, each was a daunting task done completely by feel.

"Yes… _about_ that…" Starfire's voice sharpened somewhat. Raven could feel the conversation drifting back to the question that had to inevitably come up, and it was all she could do to keep up her task as the anxiety gnawed at her. Which is why it was an unexpected relief when the whole place started vibrating like a tuning fork.

The relief lasted exactly as long as it took for her head to start throbbing unpleasantly to the rhythm of the vibration. It wasn't exactly painful, but the sensation was disturbing beyond words, and Raven found herself letting out an involuntary low-key moan. The sound was matched by Starfire, and the two of them sat there, suspended in darkness, assaulted on all sides by the grating hum.

It stopped. At the same instant, Raven lost her balance as the wires holding her wrists and ankles together released suddenly. There was a motion and grunt from Starfire accompanying a clang that could only be her manacle sliding off and hitting the ground. They were free. And yet… Raven felt… odd…

"Oh, not again." Raven muttered, as the lights came on in their cell.

Robin's Pit Cell

Robin looked up with a start as the distant ceiling to his overgrown can blazed with sudden light. He had to blink and squint at the unexpected glare, but he muscled through as quickly as possible to see what was going on. For a moment he thought his can's lid had been popped, but the colors and motions that flooded in under the glare told him this was an escape of a different tune. The entire ceiling, some fifteen feet above him, was now an enormous monitor screen displaying a generic blue and red closed-circuit television logo. In the tinted light cast by the screen, Robin noted just how completely featureless his surroundings really were. Then, with nothing better to do, he lay back on the ample cold metal of the floor and crossed his leg across his nakedness as he waited for something else to happen.

Soon enough, the screen came to life with the last face he wanted to see just then. Ravager's blank blue mask filled the massive circular plate, managing to convey an air of smug satisfaction without any visible features. Robin worked through a series of rude hand gestures, and then completed the test by breaking his silence.

"Ah, Ravager, nice to see you didn't skimp on the accessories." He smiled in comprehension when his voice got the reaction his rune hand signals hadn't. He wasn't being watched. "What is that, a projection screen? Nice."

"Only the best for my special guests. As a matter of fact, I believe it's finally time to start tonight's main attraction." The mass of seething hate was hardly hidden behind the smile Ravager's words squeezed through, but his delight was certainly a disturbing new twist to it all. "Let's consult the cameras shall we? I do believe you'll want to see this."

The camera feed switched to an angle-down view of a cell that looked quite identical to his. The only material differences were the fact that it was lit by stark fluorescent lights and contained two women in differing states of wardrobe disrepair; thankfully still far short of his own. While his chest tightened at the confirming evidence that they were indeed captured yet again, he was relieved beyond description to see that they had apparently avoided much of his own discomfort so far. Of course, all signs pointed to that not lasting.

"I've picked up a very special something to provide preliminary entertainment as well as the more serious activities I took the liberty of scheduling for later on. Heh."

"Okay, I'm about as tired of this 'vague and oblique threats' thing you've got going on as I've ever been of anything. How about you stop running your mouth and just put up already? A wimp like you doesn't frighten me, even when you try to get at me through a couple of women."

"Well, well, Robin, no lack of bravado I see. I'd like to comment right away that I've already disabled their powers."

"I'd still pick either of them over you in any kind of a fair fight. Of course… that wouldn't be on _your_ itinerary."

"Too true!" Ravager's amusement seemed to know no bounds, probably because Robin wasn't doing much of a job of disguising his distress at the ladies' probable fate. "If this were the good old days—or heck, if this was just any plain-old interrogation, I'd probably just run the old-school gamut. Subdue the subject. Start with the extremities—fingers and toes either broken or severed off. Next is always up for grabs, but I like to vary between kneecaps and cattle prod, maybe hot irons. There are all kinds of gritty details, but suffice to say that the night wouldn't end until the eyes had been removed and/or burned out and something close to eighty percent of the body's bones were broken."

Robin was carefully silent and expressionless, but he looked slightly pale.

"Of course, I've never really been into that whole torture thing—far too messy. Besides, the goal here is to cause you as much pain as possible before I kill you. Now, causing you bodily pain would hardly be satisfying—I'm certain you wouldn't give me the pleasure of screaming. That's why I picked up these two, you see. 'Hurt the love interest'—it's psychological warfare 101. But like I said—I've never been much into physical torture—much better to just kill someone. So instead I decided to delve into the advanced classes of psychological warfare—which is where I found documentation on the new frontiers of deep-integral emotional manipulation. And that, yes _that_, is how I decided to amuse myself before the heat catches up with me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Just watch."

The Ladies' Pit Cell

"I do not believe I understand what is going on Raven." Starfire made a classic understatement as she looked at the blank metal walls and rubbed her aching wrists. "Why would the slave manacles have injected me with an antidote to the sedation effects? Why did they even come off?"

"There's something wrong here." Raven was completely distracted, combing her hands through her untenably frizzled hair as she slouched on the floor in consideration. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what? I am so full of mood-altering chemicals that I am shocked to be standing!" Starfire looked frankly distressed, her gown an absolute disaster after the damage it had taken in the process of staunching the cut on her forehead. A frowning glower towards Raven indicated her silent disbelief that the other woman's tight dress was still pristine—not even a smidge of dirt on its midnight-black expanses.

"I'm not sure either, but I've got this disgustingly familiar impression that something queer is up. Like… something with my head. I've had a little too much experience with it recently to miss it at this point. Though I have to admit, I don't have a clue what's going on myself."

"Well, certainly I will take that concern into consideration." Starfire's expression became just a little bit pissy as the full sight of Raven's cocktail dress recalled the question that had been knocking around violently in her subconscious for hours now. "However, there is definitely something I have to ask you before anything else happens. What exactly were you doing at the same dining establishment as my date with Robin? It seems impossible that such a meeting could have been a coincidence, especially with you dressed like… like _that_."

"Oh… ehrrr… yeah…" In the face of the furious/betrayed look stabbing forth from Starfire's eyes, all of Raven's carefully rehearsed cover stories evaporated. Raven found herself praying for a distraction. ANY kind of distraction. "As to why I was there, well, I just… I was just…"

The light bathing them suddenly turned a gentle violet color.

Ravager's Control Station

"You see Robin, this is a fascinating little toy I dug up," Ravager bragged as he picked up a remote with a variety of dials and began to turn the big one. This dial had settings representing a full-spectrum rainbow, and he slowly adjusted it from white to purple. Below him to his right was the gigantic pot holding the women, just to the left of which was Robin's nearly identical holding container.

In instant response to his input, the machine began to hum at a higher frequency, the entire warehouse filling with a low-key answer to the reverberations. "A simple turn of a dial," he went on with gusto as he watched the monitor tracking the women, "plunges those within the field into an entirely different, entirely irresistible state of altered consciousness. It never even occurs to them that they're behaving strangely. And the final, beautiful touch: prolonged exposure to one energy state makes the effects permanent."

Ravager smiled enormously under his mask as he sat down in a beach chair in front of his monitor array. With the assurance that Robin was more or less forced to watch him play with the heads of the two people he had a thing for, Ravager raised the remote and hit the activate button, shifting the machine from warm-up to engaged.

The Ladies' Pit Cell

"…I was just…"

The light bathing them suddenly turned a gentle violet color. Wide-eyed, Raven forgot what she was saying. Then she saw Starfire, who'd gone wide-eyed quite as she had, and it occurred to her _exactly_ what she wanted to say.

"I just had to see _you_ Star!" Raven gasped the words as their utter truth locked into her chest in a burst of emotion unlike any she could recall at just this moment. "I couldn't stand to be away from you for a moment longer!" Raven leapt to her feet and stood in barely restrained enthusiasm for the pulse-racing sensation that had drilled so suddenly into her body.

"What?" Starfire asked, emotions conflicting and rearranging visibly on her face as she seemed to struggle with some enigmatic reevaluation. When things finished dancing around her cheeks, a brilliant, delighted smile was what shook out. "You mean… _you_ feel that way as well?" she squeaked, as though her bourgeoning delight would hardly allow her to say the words. Raven couldn't have looked happier at this answer if someone had opened her skull and put a flood lamp behind her teary smile.

"Oh Starfire!"

"Raven!"

The two of them closed the distance between them in the cell and fell into one another's arms, wrapping into a lover's embrace like their lives relied on maintaining their grip. Then, like some unspoken signal had passed between them, each backed up slightly so she could look into the other's eyes.

"By X'hal Raven… I have never felt this way about another before!" Starfire whispered, her eyes sparkling as each of them locked onto the other's gaze.

"Oh Starfire," Raven answered breathlessly, her hand traveling down the taller woman's completely bare back, tangling intermittently in her flowing hair, "You say the sweetest things."

"By all means then," Starfire's stance suddenly changed as she felt the hand slide delightfully down to the small of her back, "let them be enough." Starfire shifted her weight and carried Raven with her, leaning the smaller woman back and shifting her complete weight into her arms. Raven's head flew back with a wonderfully shocked gasp as one of Starfire's hands wrapped around her shoulders and the other slid up her bare thy and under her dress skirt to get its grip on an expanse of cool, smooth rump flesh left exposed by her sparse underwear.

"Oooh… Starfire!" Raven giggled in excitement as both of her hands shot up around Starfire's neck for grip. The other woman's draping hair framed her naughty smile as the two of them locked eye to eye yet again. With strength that was impressive, though not nearly her normal super-level muscle, Starfire drew Raven's face in close to hers until nothing but a hard thought stood between their quivering lips.

"I should ask…" Starfire breathed the words as her lips rubbed delicately over her Ravens, "may I take you?"

"Take me?" Raven was just as breathless as Starfire, "I want you to _marry_ me."

Everything quite abruptly sharpened into a livid red.

THWUMP!

Starfire dropped Raven like a jug of rancid milk. The look on her face had screwed up into a terrific blossom of disgust and fury as she backed away.

"MARRY you? You want me to _marry_…" Starfire was briefly at a loss for words, "_you_?"

"_What_?" Raven asked defensively as she pried herself to her feet with a look so gravely livid that it cast deep shadows under her eyes. "What's wrong with that, huh? Oh—I know—I'm not _good_ _enough_ for Ms. Star-Princess, _am_ I? That's old Raven, an easy mark to pork on the side, but when the time rolls around for a little commitment, it's time to _really_ fuck her!"

"What exactly do you think you are accusing me of you nasty little witch-slut?" Starfire spat right back at her well-clad cell-mate. "You know I have feelings for only one person, and it certainly is not a _menglack_ like you. Robin is the only one for me, or have you not seen how he looks at me?"

"Oh-ho!" Raven spotted the avenue of her counterstrike, "I know I've certainly seen the way he looks at _me_! One little glimpse before was enough to distract him completely from the plain, air-headed little skank sitting across from him."

"I KNEW IT!" Starfire shrieked as she zipped in and took a quick shot at Raven, the hard left-cross going wide as the smaller woman stumbled backward. Starfire paused then to seethe out, "You were _intentionally_ trying to ruin my date! The moment I inform Robin, you will have to forfeit the competition!"

"What competition?" Raven drawled sarcastically as she crouched to a low fighting stance. "I had this in the bag from the first kiss. Still, you won't have another chance to ruin this for me!"

She finished that statement with a shriek of fury and a low-crouching, lunging punch that caught Starfire square in the guts. Starfire heaved, but took it like a champ, bringing both fists down in a rabbit-punch square into Raven's exposed kidneys. Raven stumbled to the ground as Starfire wobbled backward, both fighting for breath. Without powers, the heavier, warrior-bred woman had the clear advantage.

Starfire recovered first, a cream-stocking heel snapping around in a spinning back-kick that would have dislocated the kneeling woman's jaw if she hadn't ducked. The swirl of skirts was no hindrance to the enraged Tameranean—while combat mobility hadn't been the intention of the sinfully high slit in the cocktail dress, Starfire moved like a kung-fu mistress in a Chinese gown. Raven had to duck and roll away from a chop-kick combo, and suddenly she was backed into the cell's curving wall.

Raven was livid, no thought in her mind but how to end Starfire's life. Starfire, on the other hand, had a look of undiluted, feral, gut-boiling hate locked into her eyes, denied a fusion-hot glow only by the grace of the lingering control drugs. She lunged suddenly, going for a choke-hold, and Raven slipped nimbly away, dragging her short nails along a stretch of skin left bare by the revealing dress and leaving four red trails in her skin and a deep rip in the cloth.

Starfire followed her as she rolled, catching up and landing full-out on top of her in a classic pin. Holding down her arms with her elbows, Starfire shifted expertly until she'd mounted the smaller woman and could restrain her entire upper body with the press of her knees. Leering with the devil's own grin, she linked her hands around Raven's neck and began to constrict mercilessly. With no thought for escape, Raven twisted and heaved until she could throw up her free lower body and wrap her legs around Starfire's neck from behind. Suddenly jerked backward, Starfire fought to maintain her choke hold, even as she forced downward with her thighs to try and stretch out and over-extend the shorter woman's body in the most painful manner possible. Raven toughed it out, and in seconds both women had achieved frightening shades of purple.

In sympathy, the room achieved a charming shade of chartreuse. The soft green flooded around them, and just as suddenly they popped out of their death-tangle and rolled apart to heave for air. They finished recovering at about the same time and sat up in nearly identical motions. They gazed around bemusedly until they simultaneously spotted one another and erupted into almost identical grins.

"Oh Star—I LOVE your dress!" Raven half-shrieked as she scooted across the cold metal floor to close with her _bestest_ friend in the _universe_.

"Really? You do?" Starfire welled with joy at the compliment, "It was such an agony to have to choose, but when I saw this one on the shelf it simply declared, 'you must wear me Kori!'"

"No!" Raven threw an incredulous wave of dismissal at her companion, "you _can't_ tell me you found that on a shelf somewhere! I was certain it was designer-made for you! I mean, you look positively _delicious_!" At this last, Raven's voice lowered to emphasize the way she meant the compliment.

"Oh Raven—Stop!" Starfire blushed with a passion, "I can not _possibly_ look better than _you_ do in _your_ festivity garb! I have been meaning to inquire all night—what is the secret of that garment? It is pristine—and it looks as though it were _painted_ onto you! You certainly _must_ tell me—the curiosity has been unbearable!"

"Please—this thing?" Raven played at modesty, but it was obvious that she was overwhelmingly proud and flattered beyond words. Well, for a moment she was beyond words. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to let it out. I made this dress myself. With magic. Actually, I used a spell to weave it out of darkness. Because of this, there aren't anymore shadows left under my bed or vanity chest."

"Truly?" Starfire looked stunned, reaching out to run a hand along the 'cloth' as it traced in perfect black fit around Raven's smoothly athletic curves. "How can such a thing be possible?"

"Heh…" Raven brandished her right hand, showing of a rather unassuming silver ring there. "The magic is bound to this. You just put it on and the dress appears."

Starfire reached out and took Raven's hand in hers, drawing the ring in for a closer look. With impeccable timing, the room's lighting deepened almost imperceptibly from a gentle green to a slightly harsher color that spoke of jungles and moss. A surge of new, unbearably powerful emotion twisted in her chest, and her face was marred by a bloom of angles and creases.

"The only problem I note about this garment," Starfire said, as Raven wobbled in oblivious confusion while attempting to adjust to the subtle change in control waves, "is that it would look far better… on ME!" Starfire jerked at the same moment, yanking the ring off of Raven's hand. In a blink, Raven's dress evaporated into vanishing black smoke, and, short of the manacle hoops on her limbs and neck, she was quite stark naked. "HA!" Starfire snapped as Raven shrieked and rushed to cover herself, exulting in her embarrassment. "What seems to be the problem Raven," she asked rather cruelly, "were all your underclothes in the laundry?"

"No…" Raven whispered, finally recovering and focusing her embarrassment in on the new emotion demanded by the OOC device. She watched as Starfire turned and toyed with the ring, waiting for her to slide it on before finishing, "that's just how the magic works."

The instant the ring was on Starfire's finger, all the cloths she'd been wearing fell through her like they were woven of air. Simply put, in order to stay permanently clean, the enchantment carried a supplement that made its wearer wraith to a great many things including, apparently, cloth. At her feet then was a pile of her sequin-encrusted dress, cream stockings, and a matching set of cream garters and panties that were lacy and semi-transparent in a way that was obviously supposed to be erotic. Of course, as cosmic law of embarrassment decreed, this was the article that landed on top of the pile, and as both women focused on them with very different thoughts, Raven was no longer the only one blushing. But she _was_ still the only one naked.

Starfire, of course, was now wearing Raven's dress. The unerringly skin-tight roll of utterly opaque material traced around her longer, leaner, more amply-endowed body in a very different fit, but it was clearly identical in design from sensuous choker to barely-there micro-skirt. Not even an envy-drunk Raven could fail to admit that Starfire wore it fantastically well—though the vindictive backlash this necessitated whispered comforting qualifications. For one, Raven had no trouble insulting Starfire's beefy, muscular legs, which were so accustomed to miniskirts that one hardly batted an eye seeing them now. For the other, she was mollified by the thought that HER dress could probably make a manatee look good.

"Oh it's _on_ now!" Raven shouted Starfire out of her mind-freezing focus on her own secretly-donned 'sexy underwear' as she grabbed for the cloth on the floor and yanked the bundle up to use as makeshift covering until she could get her dress back. There were good reasons for not donning Starfire's cloths until she got her own back, such as the fact that a dress cut to fit her like this one did would slip off of Raven's less… abundant… curves and leave her very much exposed in the bust and rump areas—not to mention the inches of skirt she'd drag. However, Raven's unbending reason for the temporary measure was simply that she wanted HER dress back. "You asked for it this time! If you don't give me back my dress with _fucking absolute haste_—I'm going to take these fuck-me-I'm-a-slut panties and stuff them right--!"

The room turned a frenetic hot-yellow, and Raven completely lost track of what she was saying. Raven's eyes widened, and Starfire lost her own haughty stance as her heart rate spiked and her mouth went dry. The two of them stared at one another in silence for a long moment, then, as though a trigger had been pulled, both of them just busted out screaming.

Fear. Terror. The kind of sensation that blanks out all other thought, all other feeling, the kind of sensation that reached down into the deepest, most reptilian recesses of the brain and bypasses twenty million years of sophistication with a simple choice: Fight or Run. Screaming, screaming, screaming like steam through a slot or a Fourth-of-July noisemaker, both women scrambled backward until they hit opposite walls, and then crumbled. Without a focus, without some clear and obvious target for the unreasoning instinctual response to the terror riding them, a flood of adrenaline and lungs furiously warring for more air were impotent, body-tormenting burdens. Raven screamed her last and crumpled into a quivering fetal position with Starfire's cloths clutched like a security blanket. Starfire pressed herself back into the wall like she would somehow pass through it and gain more room to flee, her eyes darting from one imagined flit of motion to another as she started to hyperventilate.

The yellow softened and deepened, and now it was pink.

Each woman calmed from the teetering edge of fear-induced delusional psychosis at about the same pace, and it was Starfire, leaning in relief against the smooth wall, who giggled first. It was a haphazard thing, bursting to life and then snuffing out again in the briefest moment. Still, it was more than enough, and it raised an echoing giggle from Raven. Giggles became chuckles. Chuckles became Chortles. Chortles became full-fledged laughter. In seconds, both women were reduced to completely uncontrollable laughter at everything and nothing, breaths coming in labored gasps and becoming rarer with every passing moment.

Starfire was on her knees, slapping the metal with one hand as she keeled over to ease the growing ache in her stomach and rally the quickly escalating war to breathe. Raven was rolling on her back and alternating with a useless kicking motion as she faced the same problems, hardly able, or even caring, to keep herself covered.

They were just turning blue when the room did the same.

Their weeping came quick and hard, the laughter snuffing out much more suddenly than anything before. However, they barely had a chance to get into the stuttering gasps and runny-nosed sobbing before the room shifted back to yellow. They were both shocked into involuntary body-wracking jerks by the too-sudden change, and neither had yet had a chance to scream the first time before the room went pink again. Another back-arching, fist-clenching jerk came and went, breaths gathered to scream coming out as sputtering laughs that slurred into moans as the room went blue again.

Now the room was shifting between the three colors at high speed, and the result was horrific. Unable to resist the influence of the machine trained on them—indeed, quite ignorant of the very concept that they might be under someone else's influence at all—the women went into a kind of shock as the settings blurred together into a continuous sickly orange. Raven once again balled into a fetal position as her mouth lolled open in one scrambled, drooling groan after another. Starfire was flat out on her stomach, teeth grinding and fingernails digging bleeding gashes into her palms as she went into a minor seizure and lay twitching and heaving on the metal floor.

Ravager's Control Station

"STOP! Please… stop…" Robin's voice came through the intercom, heavy with emotion. He wasn't letting anything too damning show, but he was obviously falling apart as he watched, or refused to watch, the cruel and unusual torment Ravager was cooking up in the massive mixing vat. "You're going to kill them—Please!"

"Why Robin—begging now are we? Wonderful!" Ravager cut the device down to grey setting, forcing the women on his monitor into the blessed relief of mindless stupor. "Yes, begging is an excellent start, but let's not forget what we're here for. That was just a little warm up to test some of the preliminary features. This puppy has three intensity settings, and I haven't even taken it out of first gear yet! So, are you ready to see what this thing can really do?"

"DAMN YOU!" Robin screamed into the air, the mic screeching in protest and ravager hearing a piece of it come up all the way from the pot-cell below. "If you have a beef with me—settle it with ME you coward! Leave them OUT of this!"

"Pshht." Ravager flipped the remote up into the air and caught it easily. "I'm having _way_ too much fun for that to happen." Ravager cut the audio feed from Robin's cell as the young man devolved into impotent threats and furious raving. "Now that the functionality test is over and we've managed—by complete accident mind you—to get them both pretty damn close to naked… I think it's time we returned to an earlier theme." Ravager smiled perversely under his mask as he moved a switch from first position to second position, "But this time with some _teeth_."

The Ladies' Pit Cell

Back in the converted pot, Starfire was delighting thoughtlessly as her aching muscles slowly loosened after her spasms. In the grey light, she wasn't particularly able to string two thoughts together, but her eyes wandered as she lay relaxing on her stomach, and she eventually saw Raven doing much as she was, only with fewer cloths on. Starfire's dress provided little more than something warmer than the metal floor to sit on as Raven rested her back against the wall and stared numbly at the ceiling. The stupor-inducing grey setting of the Oscillations Overpowering Consciousness device left her quite unselfconscious. All of which made the shift to plain white light that much more jarring.

Starfire perked up suddenly, as though she'd just snapped to out of a daydream, and she noticed which part of infinity her unseeing eyes had been staring off into. Blushing despite herself, Starfire flipped over in a rush and stared at the ceiling, wondering what was going on. She had perfect memory of everything that had gone on for the past few minutes, and while it all seemed perfectly natural and plausible that she and Raven had behaved as they had, something was still finagling at the back of her mind. Raven took a little longer to snap to, but when she did, it was with a sound of shock at her own unreserved nudity that informed Starfire when it finally happened.

"Uhh…" Raven shook her head as though to clear it while she wrapped herself in Starfire's dress like it was a sparkling, poorly-shaped toga. The final effect covered about as much as her own dress originally had, though it wasn't any kind of comfortable or secure, and it was disgustingly _drafty _downstairs. She wound up with leftover underwear and stockings and didn't seem to know what to do with them. Even uninfluenced toward any particular emotional bias by the unseen device, it was still nearly impossible to generate a thought or motivation of one's own as long as the baseline vibrations were still inundating the brain.

"Eh… it occurs to me that you might… want your dress back…. Yes?" Starfire showed Raven's own hesitance and unshakeable sense of wrongness, but couldn't think of anything more salient to say than that.

"Uhh…" Raven took a moment to process that, and then nodded, "Sure. This one wouldn't fit me no matter what. It's all in the bust and hips you know."

"Oh, Yes." Starfire agreed, the small talk seeming to quell that quiet murmur of strangeness this whole situation still had, "I too had trouble keeping it in place, even with it matching my size." This last was said as she turned to the side, Raven taking the cue and turning away also. Then Starfire started them off by slipping the ring from her finger and gasping at the sudden draft. She reached around to hand over the ring without looking while Raven also reached to meet her half way, intending to trade her for the underwear so they could straighten themselves out.

And that was when everything went purple. Again.

Robin's Pit Cell

Robin Raged. Robin Screamed. Robin clawed at the walls of his prison like he would strip the frictionless plastic coating with just his fingernails, like he would gouge finger grips into the metal underneath and climb up and out. But it didn't do any good. At this point, Ravager was no more listening to him than he was watching him, so he truly was alone and cut off once more. While the purple light flooded down, Robin took one last look as Starfire and Raven started making out and then averted his eyes.

Left with no recourse for his frustration, Robin crumpled into a naked slouch in the edge of the pit furthest from the moldering puddle of his own vomit. His anger was dwarfed by the crushing weight of his own impotence, both of which had nowhere to go but inside. Internalizing it all, he stared into the flickering patterns the ceiling-screen cast onto the floor and let it all curdle.

Suddenly the glare from the screen shifted red and the sound of the action above him turned to shouts of rage and the crisp sound of painful flesh-to-flesh impact. By the sound, they were fighting like feral dogs, lacking all reason and driven by no greater purpose than the desire to see the other's blood. There was one particularly harsh impact noise and an indistinct sound of animal agony, prompting a burst of heartless laughter from Ravager's line.

Instantly it was as though Robin had never calmed down, so quickly did he leap to his feet and turn murderous eyes back up to the screen. As he watched without seeing, Ravager repeated the process, sending Raven and Starfire through alternative mindless, empty passion and rabid, vicious bloodlust. Again and again he see-sawed the women through that combination, and every time they broke a kiss to tear into one another, he chuckled yet again. Robin felt like a runaway train, his guts boiling and a pressure building up behind his eyes. It felt hot and had absolutely no relation to rational thought, and it just kept getting hotter. Finally, when it felt like his blood vessels would pop and spray founts of blood from his eyes, Robin vented all of his collected frustration in one rollicking, incoherent scream of bloody murder.

He screamed until his lungs seemed to collapse like zip-lock bags with the air sucked out, then fell silent, staring straight up at the point his instincts told him the camera was hidden. For a long moment there was no change, just a black-eyed Raven necking with a split-lip Starfire, but Robin just kept staring. He concentrated everything he had into his gaze, focusing all of his searing hot desire for Ravager's death and stacking it up behind his eyes. Finally, because he couldn't help but lash out while his adversary was down and defiant, a picture-in-picture containing a camera feed of Ravager in his beach chair opened off to a random-seeming side of the circular screen above him. Surprisingly, it was exactly where Robin had been staring.

"What's the matter Robin? Aren't you enjoying the show?" Robin didn't say anything, he just kept trying to murder Ravager with his expression. "Oh don't be such a stiff! I'll probably get tired of forcing virgins into lesbian intercourse and blood-spilling catfights… err… eventually. Maybe. Probably not, but you don't have to worry about it. I'll be dumping in some cyanide before too much longer, so your 'suffering' will end soon enough. Heh heh heh heh heh, these new toys of mine are just unbearably entertaining. I'm afraid playing with them has completely distracted me from any thoughts of making your demise long and painful—I'd rather spend the time I have left doing this. So Robin, please, just sit back and try to enjoy the show. Maybe get your jerk on one last time before the end—frankly I don't really care anymore."

Ravager stopped, because through all of this, Robin hadn't spoken or responded in any way. In fact, not even his expression had budged an iota. Robin willed Ravager to look his way, to look and see how much he wanted to reach into his chest and pull out the bastard's irredeemable heart, and somehow, it worked. Ravager glanced away from the monitor displaying what was on most of Robin's screen—that being Starfire nibbling on one of Raven's ears as they… err… undulated. He looked at his feed of Robin, and then he did a double take as the emotion behind the Boy Wonder's gaze transmitted perfectly, even over the video circuit.

Robin saw something then that he would never forget, and his eyes widened in appreciation as he grinned a grin that held little in the way of sanity. "Ravager, you're going to die." Robin said.

"Yeah," Ravager said without hesitation, leaning in to the camera for emphasis, "But not before you and your little girlfriends."

"_Wrong_."

The single word slipped into the air on honeyed tones that chilled the heart, and no one who'd ever known the voice could ever mistake it.

Ravager's Control Station

"_Wrong_." Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator, Assassin Extraordinaire, commented with a tone colored by the irony of his own timing more than any form of passion.

Robin had seen what Ravager hadn't—he'd seen the killer sneaking up behind the killer, and he'd noticed the difference between them instantly. Slade's half-black, half-orange mask obscured his identity and his empty eye socket with a sinister air of intimidation that Ravager's blue shroud could never match. Rippling muscle bulged under a black and orange suit of mid-weight combat armor absolutely covered in guns, knives, and ammunition pouches—though if anything, this stealth assassination mission had prompted him to pack light. Robin's eyes widened involuntarily the moment he saw who had picked up Ravager's death contract—because that was the only reason he could possibly be here—and he pronounced his death promise even as the massive hands closed in around Ravager's unsuspecting head.

Ravager never even had a chance to be properly startled, much less put up a fight or even turn around for that matter. He might _possibly_ have had time to recognize the fact that he was about to die before hands on arms corded with muscle slipped into a familiar grip on his skull and wrenched through a motion repetition had taught them to the point of fluid muscle-memory. But really, probably not.

One moment, Ravager was taunting Robin, and the next instant, wide eyes were staring out from a neck fifteen degrees past right-full-extension for the human spine. Slade cradled Ravager's limp body for a moment, supporting it in its chair, swaying it from side to side almost playfully, and then gripped the top of the mask and gave it a tap that sent it rolling out of the beach chair and onto the control station's metal-grating floor. He took the blue shroud and stuffed it into a pocket, either as a trophy or a proof of death. Then, with a businesslike diffidence, he pulled a silenced 9mm from one of the many, many holsters on his weapons harness and shot Ravager's still form twice in the back of the head. Overkill to some, but simply a double-tap coup de'grace to a true professional.

With his immediate business concluded, Slade slid into the beach chair Ravager had vacated and leaned back as he examined the two monitors, one with Robin glaring astounded daggers into the camera and the other recording two hot teen women getting steadily freakier. It was a credit to his personality that his focus landed completely on Robin, even as he lifted the discarded remote and puzzled over it for a moment.

"Well, of all the people I wasn't expecting to bump into while back at my old stomping grounds, I'd have to say you were pretty close to the top of the list, boy." Slade was unruffled and conversational as he glanced over the remote, seeming to understand its function almost without effort. "I'd say you managed to dig yourself a very deep hole this time, and as long as I have you as a 'captive audience,' I suppose I'll go ahead and take a few liberties." There was a particularly breathy moan from the other monitor, and Slade's one eye narrowed as he spotted Robin's distraught waver. "But first, that's enough of that," he switched the OOC device to gray, forcing the women back into harmless stupor, "I'm going to need your undivided attention."  
"What do you want Slade? A thank-you?" Robin was caustic, but he seemed powerfully calmed by the fact that the women were out of immediate danger. Slade just shook his head in mild disgust.

"You seem to be under the massively mistaken impression that you've been saved. Really though, it appears that you've found another astounding stroke of luck that you caped types are so predisposed to. Let me make it clear that you and I are still enemies and that the next time we meet I will make my best, _extremely_ competent effort to _murder_ you."

"Yeah." Robin looked contemplative, too relieved by this completely unexpected reprieve to be preoccupied by his deep-seated and visceral hatred for the source of it. "So you want to talk and I can't do shit to stop you. So talk."

"My but _that's_ no attitude for someone who is about to receive sage wisdom from an old hand in the same profession—but you always were an ingrate."

"I'm not a _killer_ Slade." Robin slipped down to the floor and took up a meditative position, the camera panning out to follow him. "Can we move along here? I'm sure you've got to get back to engraving names onto bullets or something."

"Cute… very cute boy." Slade's expression was unreadable beneath the mask, but Robin could _hear_ his cruel smirk in his words. "However, I saw the look in your eyes when this looser," he gestured vaguely toward the corpse sitting in the pool of blood next to him, "was playing games with the two liabilities you've so inexplicably integrated into your life. Deny your killer instinct all you want, but yes, let us move on."

"I…" Robin struggled to keep a poker face, "…begin to see where this is going."

"A quick study, as usual. Good. Now, I no longer benefit particularly from strengthening you, but the mistake you've made here is so amateurish that I can't sit by and allow anyone who's ever been associated with my teachings to make it. Tongues will wag—_my_ reputation could be impinged by _your_ sudden addiction to idiocy."

Robin made no comment, and the smile lurking under Slade's mask sounded wider when he continued.

"As I said, you've married yourself emotionally to others on a level that those in our line of work simply can't afford. One would think that the continual examples of this mistake lined up back through the history of high-power operators like us would clue people in, but this same tissue of foolishness gets repeated again and again. How could anyone knowingly endanger themselves by forming a romantic connection to another—_knowingly_ and _willingly_, even with full knowledge of the threats that will arise on a regular basis? To hand one's enemies a lever to strike with… unbelievable. Simpering, weak, foolish sentimentalism. _Pathetic_."

"You could never understand Slade. Explaining love to a rabid sociopath murderer is like explaining color to the blind. There isn't even a basis for understanding. So are we done?"

"No." The smile had fled Slade's voice. "No, we aren't done, not yet. You sit there, so smug in your self-righteous sermonizing, boy, and I don't appreciate it. Well, I'm doing the same, I suppose, but I'm the one in the position of dominance, which gives me the right to do pretty well whatever I want. And what I want is to teach you a lesson. Hmmm… yes, and the opportunity exists to enjoy a little sport at the same time."

"What are you talking about?" Panic rose slightly past Robin's poker face. "What are you up to?"

Slade just cut the connection. All of them, actually.

Robin's Pit Cell

The screen above him flickered into darkness as Slade deactivated all monitors, and Robin found himself once more plunged into total black. His heart thumped all the way up into his throat as a wash of terrifying anticipation flowed into veins only recently cleared of rage and distress. Slade was brilliant in his unconventional tactics and terrible efficiency, and Robin could only stand in creeping fear as he waited for the next blow to come. He knew now that he and the girls were far, far from being out of danger.

There was a banging from the covering that shut him into this giant pot, then a flare of light as a cutting torch broke through the screen and traced a quick, messy circle. A grating wrench later, a circle of natural dawn sunlight was peeking down into his pit. It was not obscured in any way, but Robin knew that Slade was just outside this new avenue.

"So Boy, I want to ask you," Slade's voice echoed down diffidently, "did that looser explain to you just how the device he was using works?"

"Not really, but I more or less got the idea." Robin managed to maintain control of his tone, though he had no illusion that Slade believed him as nonplused as he sounded.

"Well here's a little fact that I picked up reading the Society of Assassins Intel blurb on this particular toy when it first came out: More than eight minutes of exposure to class three levels of any one induced emotional or mental state leaves the mind permanently entrapped in that condition. More or less—it is a case-by-case thing, but eight minutes sounds about right here."

"Slade… don't do this…" Robin wasn't begging—he'd never beg anything of Slade. He was _telling_ Slade not to complete this little game of his.

"I'm setting the control to level three yellow-spectrum oscillation."

"Don't DO IT!" Robin screamed, hopelessly. His only answer was the distant sound of muffled screaming that quickly trailed away to nothing. "_NOOOOO_!"

"Oh yes. At this level the emotion of fear is quite exquisitely overpowering. According to pioneering research by one Dr. Crane, the initial shock actually shuts down most of the higher brain functions. I'd say about now they've finished reflexively vacating their bowels and bladders and have moved on to rapidly escalating adrenaline-fueled cardiac arrhythmia. It's really a toss up as to weather they enter persistent vegetative catatonia or just suffer massive cardiopulmonary failure."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

"No need for shouting boy, you'll get your chance if you just calm down. Now—calm…?" Robin reigned in the urge to rip out his own hair and mangled his face into a semblance of calm. "Good. See this?" Slade held up something over the hole that, backlit as it was, looked like a spool of twine. Then he withdrew it.

There was some motion out where Robin couldn't see and then a line of stiff wire fell in a bundle trailing up to the opening. Robin literally couldn't believe his eyes. Thinking to seize control of Slade's temporary insanity, Robin snatched at the wire and prepared to free-climb up the twine-thin rope. The instant he touched it, he ripped his hand away and cursed virulently. His fingers were bleeding along an unbelievably deep, fine cut inflicted by the barest brush with the line.

"That's heavy-duty razor-filament wire. We in the business use it for garrotes, nooses, impromptu restraints—you know how it goes. I guarantee it will support your weight, but if you can free-climb that and still count to ten on both hands, you will have impressed me beyond my wildest expectations. The way I see it, you have two very clear-cut alternatives. The control is right up here—you can scale the wire and save these women you've gotten so attached to, or do the smart thing and abandon them to their destruction and wait for your little friends to rescue you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have—as you so aptly put it—some bullets to etch names into. At the rate I'm going, I'll have the seed money to start a new criminal empire by the end of next quarter. See you around Boy. Oh and boy—'six minutes and forty seconds,' by the by."

"SLADE!" Robin called after him in a fury, but there was no answer. There was only the gently waving razor wire and the clock ticking away inside his head. Looking down on the cut seeping blood from his right hand, Robin wavered only for the barest moment. With a quiet prayer to whatever god might be listening, Robin resigned himself to what he was about to do.

Immediately Robin started to hype himself up, breathing heavily and slapping at his skin as his eyes watered involuntarily at the thought of what was coming. When he felt he'd built up as big a head of determination as he could, he squared his jaw and grabbed the very end of the razor wire in his left hand. Instantly he was cut in a half dozen places, but he ignored the stinging and the swell of blood as he wrapped the wire around his palm and wrist in a gentle but secure bind. His hand was already completely slick with blood.

His heart thundering with adrenaline and the rising shock of his bloodied hand, Robin found a spot at around shoulder height and began to wrap his right hand with the slack between that and the end around his left hand. Now he was literally dripping with blood, small rivulets pouring down his arms to cover the floor and his legs with numerous harsh, bright red spots. He heaved for air past the panic caused by so many bleeding wounds so willfully induced, praying for the time when shock would tune out the pain and simultaneously desperately hoping he could stay focused through it all.

Whimpering once then, because there just wasn't any way this wasn't going to be the worst thing he'd ever done, Robin steadied himself on his feet. He hesitated once again, rather foolishly, considering how far he'd already committed, but really, really understandably. Then, Robin fixed the image of himself trying to eulogize at Starfire's funeral or pull the plug on Raven's persistently vegetative husk, and that was all there was to it. With a last deep breath and a dribble of moisture down his cheeks, Robin heaved once with his right hand and pulled himself the first few inches off the ground.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Search Party, Kidnapping Plus Eight Hours

With a thundering crash, the loading dock door of the old food processing mill flew off its running tracks and blasted into the empty factory floor in a dented, clattering heap.

"Full-grid search!" Cyborg shouted rather unnecessarily, a yellow and orange blur zipping past him. The blur canvassed the room in a whirlwind of disturbed air, covering hundreds of square feet in the blink of an eye.

"Sweet Jesus!" the shout of shock and alarm echoed through the large, mostly empty space of the building, and suddenly Kid Flash was right there in front of them again, a pale, haunted look on his face. "Found Robin! He's hurt, and there's some corpse up there next to him, but the joint is abandoned otherwise. M-medics—I'm going for medics! There—on the scaffolds above the food processors—hurry!" And he was gone.

Ahead of the team was a forest of pipes and conveyers, enormous machines that at some time had worked in perfect unison to create something—maybe cereal or candy, it was impossible to tell at this point. Rather than the relief they'd hopped to feel at finding something, the boys were overtaken by anxiety from Flash's vague but urgent report.

"Right, follow me!" Cyborg took command, though his orders weren't quite as good at dispelling their hesitation as Robin's tended to be. The team navigated the maze of ladders and maintenance walkways until they reached what seemed to be a nest of newly-lain cables and monitors overlooking a pair of gigantic food-processing tanks. It didn't take much more to find Robin.

"Oh… no…" Speedy summed up the general mood as each of the three of them spotted what was left of the Boy Wonder. He rushed over and knelt next to his friend to check vitals as Cyborg and Beast Boy went on guard, shock turning to anger that they would very much have loved to have a target for. "He's still with us, but just barely—I can't believe how much blood…" Speedy decided not to finish that statement, because the scene really spoke for itself.

Robin was leaning back against a console, unconscious and naked except for a liberal coating of his own dried blood and strips of cloth that had been tied with tourniquet constriction around both wrists. The cloth had been pulled from the costume of the corpse, a blue-clad soldier that the guys knew from description to be Ravager. Robin's hands were partially purple from blood-deprivation and sliced into hamburger besides, with blood from the wounds all over… well… everything.

"Alright, Speedy," Cyborg checked his scanner, "Help me find the girls. I'm pickin' them up around here too. BB…" he hesitated for a moment now, reflecting the difficulty of talking about what he was going to say next, "… sniff around and try to find the rest of Robin's fingers."

Speedy left Robin with reluctance, Beast Boy going slightly greener than normal before shifting into a bloodhound and starting his tracking routine on the trail of blood splashed all over the place. Cyborg followed his scanner to the edge of the scaffolding and looked down, the archer coming up behind him. As soon as they got a closer look at the food processors below, the story of what happened here began to piece together.

"Robin was held in that one," Speedy began, pointing down and to the left at a gigantic pot with an ill-fitting piece of steel plating over its normally wide-open top. There was a hole in the steel with a trail of blood splashed out of it and the edge of the scaffolding just above that spot seemed now to be the origin of the blood trail. "No clue what cut him up yet, but judging by the condition of his hands I'd say it happened while he was climbing out of there. Considering that, the obvious place to find the girls would be—"

"The other pot!" Cyborg finished.

"Uh, yeah."

"No man—the other pot!" Cyborg pointed this time, and Speedy saw what he was talking about. There was a faint sound from the other cooking vat with its jerry-rigged steel lid, like a pounding and badly muffled shouting. Speedy and Cyborg glanced at one another, and then wasted no time flipping and leaping down onto the steel lid.

A quick examination of how the thing was attached to the vat lead to the simplest possible plan for cracking it—Cyborg got a grip on one edge and peeled the metal back like it was a tin can and not two-inch plated steel. Folding down the bent metal, a deep, dark space below was flooded with light, twin sounds of exaggerated relief echoing out in answer.

"Speedy? Cyborg? Raven—we have been rescued!" Starfire sounded at the edge of tears. She was wearing her filthy, torn cocktail dress, which, along with a few bruises around her face and neck, made her look disquietingly close to a beaten hooker. Raven was wearing her dress, and if it weren't for the shiner darkening her left eye and her messy hair, she'd look as pristine as she had at the start of the night. Magic—go figure.

"Hi Ladies!" Speedy shouted down, and then caught a whiff of the air rising out of the vat. "Ugh! What is that _smell_?"

"Don't ask!" Raven shouted, sounding like she'd just run three marathons. "Just… don't ask. Can you get us out of here?"

"Hold on, we've gotta finish helping Robin—" Cyborg started, then slapped a metal hand over his mouth as he realized he'd messed up.

"_What's wrong with Robin_?" Both women screamed simultaneously.

"Nothing, nothing!" Speedy tried to calm them. "He's just fine. You girls just sit tight while I tie off a rope and—"

"Hey guys!" Beast Boy shouted enthusiastically from above them, "I think I found Robin's pinky!"

Starfire and Raven had matched looks of horror on their faces, completely frozen by the intensity of their concern. Starfire lost her knees and Raven was barely able to catch her as she slumped over.

"No—hey—It's not as bad as all that!" Speedy lied clumsily as he held up his hands in a mollifying gesture. Cyborg still hadn't taken his hand off of his mouth.

"HA!" Beast Boy shouted again, "Founds his _other_ pinky!"

"BEAST BOY!"

He'd never get to react to the other guys' anger though, because that's when the ambulance arrived.

Titans Tower Medbay, Kidnapping Plus Forty-Eight Hours

Speedy stood in the foyer of the Titans Tower Medbay and glanced from the woman to his left over to the woman on his right. Starfire and Raven were back in uniform and doing everything in their power to avoid looking at one another. Speedy had asked about their sudden shyness of one another, and Raven had told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't any of his business. Cyborg had read up on the odd device they'd found strapped to the outside of the vat the women had been trapped in, and his description had painted a picture that left much to Speedy's imagination, but none of what he imagined was anything less than horrible.

They looked just _awful_. Starfire had recovered from most of her minor injuries as her alien toughness returned with her strength and powers. However, the drugs she'd been exposed to had left her absolutely insomniac, and she had bleak bags under her eyes from days without a single wink of sleep. Raven had made out the worse of the two by far, however. Her black eye hadn't quite recovered, but that was nothing compared to the almost deathly pale, pasty tone her skin had taken on. They'd finally figured out how to remove the manacles that had suppressed her powers, only to discover that the backlash from all that suppressed emotional energy suddenly releasing was a terror unto itself. Raven had been struck down, comatose for twenty-four hours in her own bed and barely clinging to life. Starfire had spent her sleepless days and nights at her friend's side, the mysterious shyness they now showed each other unable to match her concern. Or maybe the shyness just wasn't present when there wasn't a chance they'd have to talk about what happened between them in that foul-smelling prison cell.

"Okay ladies. Let's go." Speedy said, and turned halfway to activate the door panel without taking his eyes off of them. They each advanced hesitantly, eyes downcast away from one another, and made an effort to not even brush each other as they followed him through the door to Robin's hospital room.

Inside, Speedy took up a spot next to the door as Starfire and Raven fanned out to either side of his bed. Robin was even more frighteningly pale than Raven, the massive blood loss he'd suffered bringing him to the brink of eternity and simply not receding at all quickly. His body was mostly covered by his bed sheets, but his masked face, now protected by one of his regular, smooth masks, and his pale arms were still exposed. His hands were each encased in a plastic sack filled with disinfectant, and the plastic was covered by cloth to spare them the sight of his ghastly injuries. Speedy had seen them, however, when he was removing the foam emergency mask. They were purple and bruised and completely coated in prickly forests of stitches. They were absolutely hideous, but at least the prognosis was good for him to keep the severed fingers. When he was relatively certain neither woman would freak out, Speedy stepped out of the room and left them in privacy. For a long time, no one said anything.

"Hey there," Robin broke the silence without opening his eyes, forcing both women to jolt in surprise.

"Robin… you are conscious?" Starfire answered, expressing the common disbelief.

"Yeah, well, I'm a little doped up, but I try to avoid dosages of pain medication that will actually knock me out. It's an old habit." With this explanation, the room fell back to silence again. Before the ladies hadn't known whether or not he'd be able to hear him, now they were just plucking up the courage to begin.

"We heard…" Raven finally began, "We heard you were hurt trying to save us. We knew there must be an explanation for why… what was happening to us stopped, we didn't hear it was you until afterward. I'm not sure how much more of that we—I—" Raven looked at Starfire for the first time since she'd regained consciousness, and the other woman just nodded, "how much more of that _we_ could have survived." Raven trailed off and glanced at Starfire again, surprised she hadn't requested that Raven speak for herself only. Starfire seemed not to notice Raven's surprise as she addressed Robin.

"We wish to thank you Robin." Star was earnest and solemn. "You saved our lives again… and to see what it has cost you—"

"Nah." Robin interrupted the moment it became obvious that Starfire was working up into a fit of tears. Both women waited while he gathered the breath to speak again. "It was never in question from the moment I knew your lives were in danger. If it was a choice between giving up some part of my body or the two of you… well… take my hands—_please_. They make prosthesis for hands these days—just look at Cyborg. You two are… completely irreplaceable in the entire universe."

The women stood in wonder of that comment for a moment, too stunned to even react. Then Raven staggered and fell into a chair next to the bed—the most she could allow herself without destroying something—and Starfire burst into unrestrained weeping.

"Oh Robin!" She couldn't contain herself, and she leapt down to embrace him across his chest.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Robin said slowly until Starfire leapt off of him, face creased with contrition at having hurt him. She slowly worked at drying her eyes as he caught his breath again after the new rush of hurt. "Do… do you two remember—?"

"Yes." Raven stopped him before he could say more, despairing that he'd ask for details of what had happened to them. "Yes, we remember every second we were fully conscious for." She and Starfire were blushing for a very different reason now, and each seemed to find something interesting about the plain tiled floor.

"I'm sorry. I—I'm sure there was something I could have done—"

"Robin, stop that!" Starfire commanded, and he obeyed immediately. The look on her face was kind of frightening.

"Don't you dare try to feel guilty about this Robin," Raven elaborated on their common sentiment, double-teaming him as though they'd rehearsed this. "There was no way to anticipate or prevent anything that happened. And when the time came, you were ready to sacrifice everything for us! After all that selflessness, how _dare_ you try to feel guilty?"

"I…" It was Robin's turn to be stunned. "I… no." Robin sighed expressively. "I'm sorry. I don't know if you realize, but I was forced to watch everything that happened to you while that machine was manipulating you."

Starfire let out a peep of embarrassment and turned away the moment this news sunk in. Raven turned deep magenta—an incredibly uncomfortable-looking transformation considering her sickly patina—and crossed her arms as she looked straight down again. Even after the transfusions that had saved his life, Robin didn't have enough spare blood to blush, but it looked like he wanted to.

"Yeah. If I sound guilty, that's why. I would have done anything to protect you from that. I'm so sor—"

"Please, cease your apologies!" Starfire demanded, without turning around. "Raven has already released you from blame. We know you did everything you could to save us—that we were discomforted before hand can not be helped."

"Starfire is right," Raven continued, though her blush didn't abate, "stop that. What happened to us was… was…" she trailed off, at a loss for words. "I don't know what it was. It was like…"

"Nothing we did seemed like it was due to anything more than our own wills and desires." Starfire came to Raven's rescue in an unexpected bout of eloquence. "It was as though we had decided for ourselves to do everything that we… did."

"Right," Raven agreed, her embarrassment dissolving somewhat as she realized she wasn't the only one feeling as she did. "Even looking back, even knowing we were being controlled by that machine… It's really hard to see anything we did and feel violated or disgusted by it."

Starfire turned around too now, and the two ladies looked right into each other's eyes for the first time since their kidnapping. Something passed between them, some spark of understanding borne of common intense experiences, and it was suddenly as though the past day of unspoken tension had never been. It was delightfully refreshing, and both women looked the better for it.

"Hmm…" Robin hummed in exhausted relief, "well I don't know what you're talking about really, but it sounds like we got luckier than I expected. I was afraid I'd used all my luck when it turned out they wouldn't have to amputate my hands."

"Indeed…" Starfire said, still communicating on an almost instinctual level with Raven. "Raven… might I… have a word?" Starfire gestured with a nod to the corner of the room, and Raven just nodded and walked back to meet with her out of Robin's earshot.

The two of them put their heads together forehead to forehead and laced their arms around one another's shoulders, speaking in whispers that Robin had no chance of overhearing. Their huddled conversation wore on, Robin's curiosity eclipsed only by his exhaustion, so that he spent less time worrying about what they were muttering than he did just concentrating on staying conscious. Eventually—at _long_ length—they returned, this time standing side by side.

"Do you want to say or…?" Raven began.

"Please, go ahead." Starfire smiled wanly.

"Well…" Raven took a moment to collect herself. "Starfire and I had a little talk."

"Indeed?" Robin would have chuckled at her answering glower if he'd had the energy.

"Yes. I should let you know right away that we still haven't decided things between us." Robin inserted a quiet curse into her pause, and both women smiled. "I'm saying we still aren't sure of that, but we are quite sure of something else."

"Oh yeah?" Robin wasn't trying to be mean, but he couldn't help but be anxious about this whole issue resurfacing while he'd hardly had time to regain his senses, much less his health. He toyed with the idea of hitting the emergency call button with his elbow and having Speedy usher the women out, but they were too quick for him.

"What we're trying to say is that we're _sorry_ Robin." Raven stated as simply as possible, and Robin couldn't help but be surprised completely away from his emergency call button. "We've been pretty damn selfish, that's gotten very clear. I mean, here we are, two friends squabbling over the same guy like jealous, needy _bitches_, and we go right ahead and push all the responsibility for sorting things out onto the least qualified one for the job—_you_."

"The phrase Raven originally used," Starfire cut in, "Was: asking a _man_ to make a commitment among attractive options is like asking a cat to breathe underwater."

This time Robin did laugh, and instantly regretted it from the pain.

"Over and over, through actions and words both, you make it clear how much you care about us," Raven went on. "And all we do is keep tormenting you to solve our dispute for us. Well, we just want to say—"

"Raven and I are done squabbling over you, Robin." Starfire couldn't wait for Raven to say it, and rushed ahead of her. She seemed enormously proud of this statement, but Robin was merely confused. Really, really, really confused.

"Uh. Huh?"

"We're not going to fight over you anymore Robin," Raven said, as though expecting his incredulous stare from the start. "Or at least… that's the idea anyway."

"Indeed," Starfire's proud smile did a vanishing act, "I too am uncertain how well it will work, but we are determined to trouble you with our disputes no longer. Perhaps we will work out our differences and meet an agreeable conclusion. Perhaps we may yet be wrenched apart by a rivalry… but…" Starfire snuck a glance sideways at Raven, "I can not help but feel our 'dynamics' have shifted somewhat for this experience."

"Right. Yeah," Robin was unable to keep a straight face, "I'll believe you two can settle for half my attention when I see it." Both women greeted his cynicism with an ice cold wall. Robin didn't back out. At first. "Damn—_fine_! How about you two let me get some sleep? If you want me to ever be able to hold either of you ever again, I'll need some rest."

The ladies each gave him a look, but his eyes were already closed, so he was able to safely ignore what those looks might have meant. Starfire glanced at Raven again, then, rather shyly, she held out a hand. Raven looked at it for a moment, seeming to face down some internal conflict, and then took the offered hand with a weak smile of her own. They left Robin to his sleep.

Outside, Speedy saw them leave, hand in hand, after having entered without wanting look at one another, and his mind boggled. He glanced into Robin's room to see him sleeping, and then glanced back as the ladies got into the elevator. Then he shook his head. Every now and then, Robin just impressed the hell out of him.

Epilogue—Kidnapping Plus Two Months

"Have you ever felt like you were living in a dream?" Robin asked, the sound mildly muffled by the fact that his face was pressed into his palms along his chin to prop it up during his grinning reverie. The pink scars traced over them like they were made of patchwork, but even now they were fading with treatment.

"I guess… how do you mean?" asked his companion, who sat immediately next to him at the bar, leaning back against it and keeping his eyes on the room.

"I mean, like the world is caught in some kind of surreal warp," and he didn't alter his grin as he spoke, a shroud of satisfaction stiffening his shoulders, "like every moment is impossible to deny and impossible to believe at the same time," his voice was colored by the force of his emotional exhilaration, doing nothing to improve his friend's ability to understand, "like you keep expecting to wake up and end the incredible time."

"…Damn… you are _so_ obnoxious," Robin's compatriot accused him rather than answering that unbelievably smug expression, his eyes surveying the large, quiet diner systematically as he spoke his aside to the zoned-out joker next to him. "Do you have to sit there and brag about what a lucky bastard you are? You're making me sick." From the tone it was clear the young red-haired man, so similar in build and appearance to the utterly dejected Boy Wonder, was actually just massively jealous.

"Heh, yeah, sorry. I don't mean to be like that, but I just can't believe how things are going. And really, if it makes you feel better, it's not all champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Those two are as competitive as hell, and they'll tire you out like you wouldn't believe!"

"Oh, I can believe they'd 'tire you out,' you stud you!" Speedy quipped, and then dodged the retaliatory elbow shot his friend threw. He chuckled in satisfaction as they waited for people at the various other tables to stop staring.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about. Shit man, taking this to _that_ level would probably be the kiss of death for our stability. As long as I keep things low key, it'll keep working out."

"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that." Speedy was clearly incredulous, as though he were determined to bring his friend down a peg before he lost out to his envy and stamped away. He'd come into town tonight on regular rounds, not to sit here getting his friend's success shoved down his throat. "Besides, what fun is it keeping things low key?"

"Oh, with these two?" Robin challenged, "_Plenty_. I never would have pegged Raven as such a romantic, but hell! Must be all those dramas and romances she's read. And Starfire—how can one woman be so sexy and still pull of 'cute' so well? It's damn mystifying! I'll admit there was a little trouble at first. They could be a little snippy when one would try a PDA at the tower with the other around, but we set some ground rules about keeping it to dates and it evened out pretty quick. We got along fine taking turns on dating, and then _they_ came to _me_ with the idea of going out with both of them at once. I'll tell you, that one was touch and go at the start, when I was sitting between them in a movie. Talk about a tug-of-war! Then it all came together at dinner, mostly because I had them sit side by side _across_ the table from me so they could keep one another in check. Yeah… not sure how many more of those I have in me unless they calm down a little—"

"ALRIGHT! Damnit man—I get it! You're happy, they're happy, _fantastic_! Be sure to give me a call in another month, when they both want some poon-tang out of you and start taking pieces out of each other in jealousy of time in your bed!"

Robin was silent, because it had been a crude blow. Speedy realized he'd said too much the moment it was out of his mouth, but he could hardly take it back. Then Robin's blank stare became a smile, and Speedy's jaw flopped open in confusion.

"Actually, I've had some ideas about that myself."

"ARG! Why do I have the feeling that I actually _don't_ want to hear about this?"

"No, seriously," Robin put up his hands to try and calm his friend down a little, honestly interested in his opinion. "First of all, I'm not going to push the timetables at all. Unlike you, I have something called _discipline_. That and ol' righty, now that she's better, keep me under control. This is because… I'm pretty sure they're working out that whole sex issue on their own, with me out of the loop."

"Alright… I was wrong," Speedy admitted as he suddenly split a huge grin, "Spill. What's this now?"

"Well… I don't have this on any kind of authority mind you… but…" He smiled, leaned in, and lowered his voice to a whisper. Speedy listened intently, and then snapped back away, obviously believing his friend to be quite out of his mind.

"Those two? NO! No way in hell. You. Are. Dreaming. My god, I can't believe I envied you for even a minute!" Speedy changed tracks as he leapt off his stool. "Dating two women but not getting jack from either? That's like doing twice the work for no pay! HA! I leave you to it Robin, make sure you take good care of righty if she's the only one giving you any 'attention.'"

"Pshh, you jerk!" Robin shouted as Speedy walked away, "I know you're just jealous!"

"Fat chance!" Speedy called back. He stepped into the cool night air and out into the parking lot, still chuckling to himself about the goofy theory Robin had whispered to him. No way.

Still, Speedy did have to admit that he was maybe a little envious. Robin had a good thing going now that those two had calmed down a little. In his heart, Speedy wished them the best of luck, and he wondered how long it would be before one or the other realized that, if nothing else, their extreme-danger lifestyle and the plain march of time meant that they couldn't juggle things forever. Yes, for those three, the best of luck.

The End

(Crank you fav' song, cause the credits are rollin')

BUT WAIT! You favorite song skips on its player and dies out as the camera cuts back to Speedy.

As he walked back to his motorcycle, Speedy heard an alluring whistle. His eyes were drawn to a nearby alley, where an unfamiliar, absolutely stunning leg was sticking out from behind the corner, along with a pale hand making an inviting gesture. Instantly, Speedy's face split into a brilliant, hungry smile. It didn't take him long to make it over to the alley, eyes focused on the leg even as the hand withdrew. He just had time to see that the leg was a mannequin's before a strong force griped him around the shoulders and jerked him into the alley's darkness. He was about to break into full-combat when another strong force pushed him into the alley wall and knocked the air out of him. When he opened his eyes, a stray light over a building's back door was illuminating two very familiar female silhouettes.

"Star—Rae—how ya doing?" Speedy said, nerves bleeding from his tone. He'd been hoping to avoid them at all costs seeing as how they couldn't possibly not realize—

"We're just going to cut to the chase Speedy," Raven said, not at all threateningly. "We know that you were playing us both a while back, and since you were here in town again, we figured we'd show you our…'appreciation'."

"Now ladies… let's not be hasty!" Speedy had broken out in a cold sweat, because Star's eyes had started to glow with a hot green light in the dark, and the shadows themselves seemed to gather around Raven's backlit silhouette.

"Silly Speedy!" Starfire said in a sweet-as-candy tone, "We are not angry! You genuinely wished to help us both—we want to thank you!"

"Uh, _really_?" Speedy couldn't deny the sincerity in Starfire's voice, though he'd learned to be ever-wary when her eyes glowed like that, so he was torn.

"Of course," Raven said, tone still cool, "We decided to introduce a few girlfriends of ours to you. You don't mind, right?"

"Girls?" Speedy couldn't believe his ears, "no kidding? Of course I don't mind! Er… is it anyone I know?"

"I kind of doubt it. They are _very_ eager to meet you though." That sounded unnecessarily ominous, and Speedy got a sudden, Very Bad Feeling. "In fact, they're waiting to meet you right now. Hey girls!" Raven shouted, "Over here!"

Suddenly, there was a mass of noise, as though from a middle school cafeteria at peek hours, and something in Speedy's lower intestines tightened in abject terror. The noise drew close to the other end of the alley, where it found its source in a mass of people. People with high, squeaky, high-speed voices. People wearing glitter and masses of fake jewelry. People generally not exceeding five feet in height. People almost universally lacking breasts despite their undeniable femininity.

They got closer, and there was a sudden, collective, simultaneous intake of breath. The breath released in one voice.

"OH! IT'S SPEEDY!" came the shriek. It was the unspeakable: under-aged fan-girls… a _lot_ of under-aged fan-girls. Speedy's eyes bulged as he stared at their enormous numerical superiority.

"Was… was this really necessary?" He asked Starfire and Raven as tears began to well at the corners of his eyes, the mounting feeling of desperation choking them from his body.

"Get him girls!" Starfire and Raven shouted as one. The tide of female flesh that had barely begun to taste puberty's bittersweet breath advanced in one mass, and Speedy turned to run. The look on his face was priceless.

(Freeze frame on Speedy in mid-stride, frenzied fan-girls behind him. Your favorite song blasts back at the best part and the credits roll again.)

* * *

All done folks. We'll discuss the possibility of bonus chapters based on reader response. I left the ending open with this 'official' finale because I really DON'T CARE who gets Robin, and I wanted the ending I was comfortable with to be the one I didn't include in any potential alternate ending bonus material. It makes no difference to me, and choosing either side would leave me open to criticism from the other. So, I chose neither, with an ending that could eventually lead to either, both, or none. This way, everyone gets to criticize me, that being what I've been looking for from the start—critical commentary. If you want to see me write a one girl ending, well, that's negotiable, but really, does it matter? Yes, yes, my avowed purpose at the first chapter was to settle the question of who should get Robin—readers with a good eye should recognize this as a 'pilot hook.' It's always been my opinion that it doesn't matter who gets who, as long as the characters are written as being at least marginally believable and true to their plot-constructed feelings. My genuine goal with this story was to entertain you all and improve my own writing, both of which I've achieved, so there. I suffered through a swelled-head period and a subsequent 'no one's reading so why update' period, and both were probably good for me in the long run. That makes this a successful project.

Direct complaints, compliments, and especially CRITICAL COMMENTARY—right here baby. Note—I've already admitted to this being an overblown melodrama, so that doesn't count. I'm all ears for complaints about the open ending though—fire at will. Spelling and grammar… well… you try editing chapters this long with 100 accuracy!

Damnit. Now I have to go back and final-edit this leviathan story. Oh well.


End file.
